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Inspired by the Schmidt Sting Pain Index, Michael L. Smith did us all a favour and answered the obvious follow up question on which body parts hurt the most when stung. He had honey bee guards sting him in 25 locations, multiple times to account for variability, over 38 days.
Results:
The three least painful locations were the skull, middle toe tip, and upper arm (all scoring a 2.3). The three most painful locations were the nostril, upper lip, and penis shaft (9.0, 8.7, and 7.3, respectively).
He and Schmidt were awarded with a shared Ig Noble Price for their efforts.
I guess that means he killed 25 bees. Should have used a hornet instead.
75 bees actually, 3 rounds of stinging.
A sting from a honey bee is familiar to many because of its world-wide distribution. The sting can be reliably provoked, and standardized, making it an ideal experimental stimulus. Furthermore, its rating as the center point of the Schmidt pain scale suggests it may be a useful standard. The present study therefore used honey bee stings to determine whether sting location impacts painfulness, and how painfulness varies by location.
Reads as: honey bees are cheap to acquire and I ain’t letting no hornet sting my private parts.
The shaft was only a 7.3?!?
Well we know what they’re into…
Where did a taint sting land?
Was only the shaft part of the penis tested?
Tongue? Eye ball? Penis head?
As a trans woman, can confirm, getting electrolysis on the upper lip is the stuff of nightmares. i can’t imagine something as big as a bee stinger hitting you there.
Well, it’s SOMEONE ELSE getting bitten, but close enough.
Of course it’s JJBA
Who better to come up with a scale than a connoisseur.
I mean, where is the difference to hot, spicy food?
Imagine Hot Ones, but with insect stings.
Schmidt’s index is full of brilliant stuff.
Red Fire Ant: Sharp, sudden, mildly alarming. Like walking across a shag carpet and reaching for the light switch.
Tropical Fire Ant: You should have learned, but the carpet is the same, and when you again reach for the light switch, the shock mocks you.
Southern Fire Ant: It happens on the third day, as you reach for the light switch, and you’re wondering when you will ever learn.
Giant Ant: A pulsing sting with some flavour. You stepped into a salt bath with an open wound.
Glorious Velvet Ant: Instantaneous, like the surprise of being stabbed. Is this what shrapnel feels like?
Warrior Wasp: Torture. You are chained in the flow of an active volcano. Why did I start this list?
Tarrantula Hawk Wasp: Blinding, fierce, shockingly electric. A running hair dryer has just been dropped into your bubble bath.
Absolute lunatic.
Tarrantula Hawk Wasp: Blinding, fierce, shockingly electric. A running hair dryer has just been dropped into your bubble bath.
The first time I ever saw one of these it was dragging a paralyzed tarantula back to its nest. That big fucker stopped what it was doing, turned around, and stared at me like it was sizing me up. It then turned back around and continued dragging the tarantula across the ground like, “Oh. It’s just a human. Not an actual threat. No biggie.”
No biggie is right. No way in hell I was getting anywhere close to a 3 inch long wasp.
He was sizing you up! We’ve recently figured out that their pin-head brains can pattern match well enough to recognize human faces. He was getting a lock on you and filing your face away in his threat matrices. :)
Tested this myself! Wasps were building a nest directly above my front dog. Pig went out the dog door, I out the regular door, many times a day. Made a point of not staring or reacting if they flew close. Zero issue for either of us. Only time they got riled up when when I got my face close and stared for a few seconds.
CAVEAT: This does NOT apply to hornets, particularly the ones that boil out of the ground. Run for the fucking hills.
CAVEAT: This does NOT apply to hornets, particularly the ones that boil out of the ground. Run for the fucking hills.
I’ve only encountered those fuckers once in my life. They made a giant nest in a rather large sand and gravel pile on my parent’s property. After a year or so of them being there, an older cousin of mine had the idea to try to take them out with slingshots. I suggested napalm.
We compromised. We whipped up a batch of improvised napalm with a bunch of kerosene and a styrofoam cooler, poured that down the main entrance of the hive extremely carefully, and lit it on fire. We then spent the next few hours taking potshots at most of the hornets that tried to flee while on fire. We made certain to kill the queen when she finally emerged, though I don’t think she was long for the world anyway. She couldn’t fly, and had burning “napalm” covering half of her. We still made sure to throw a large stone on her.
We did this specifically because everyone in my family is allergic to bee stings, so it was kinda an act of war for them to move into that part of our property.
We whipped up a batch of improvised napalm with a bunch of kerosene and a styrofoam cooler
Kerosene doesn’t dissolve styrofoam. You’re thinking of gasoline.
Kerosene is still a non-polar solvent, why wouldn’t it dissolve styrofoam?
I was a kid at the time, but I’m pretty sure we used kerosene. It was red.
Ground hornets pattern match too. I had a massive nest I had never noticed in an old stump. They hadn’t bothered me despite having walked by numerous times. Then one time I hit the nest with the riding mower. Man that sucked. I’m not outright allergic, but a dozen stings does make me feel sick. After that, anytime I got within 20ft of the nest with the mower they would come out in force.
Then a few years later I had the same thing happen with a raised garden bed. They never bothered me and I didn’t even know they were there, until my weedwacker attacked the entrance of the nest. I had to steer clear of that section of the garden for a few weeks after.
Ground hornets are horrible.
I was at a bbq when an asian giant hornet landed near us. Damn near reconsidered moving the entire setup to get away from it, but eventually it flew off
I’ve been stung by a velvet ant (although not a glorious one) and that’s honestly pretty spot on. I still remember that hot poker feeling, and they move so fast I didn’t even see the sting happen! That was my first lesson that fuzzy is not always friend 🥲
Back when I was in the military I saw one on the sidewalk in Texas as I was stepping forward, too late to abort. It was fine, completely unfazed by my combat boots. It had to fit in between one of the treads, but still. Serious little critters.
How did he know what getting electrocuted to death feel like?
Sweat bee’s never going to recover after getting called fruity like that
I didn’t even know sweat bees could sting. When I drove a cab I used to sit in a field with my feet sticking out the window and they’d inevitably come land on me and suck on my toes. I suppose it wouldn’t make much sense to sting your food source if you don’t have to, though.
When I was a kid, they were forever stinging me in the armpits.
I bet he’d be friends with Coyote Peterson.
Man I absolutely adored his channel when my kids were toddlers. His love and energy for animals was a straight homage to Steve Irwin.
And then he started doing unboxing videos… haven’t thought of him since.
Honestly, I only ever saw a few of his videos and they were all about getting stung. I never saw particular love and care for animals, I guess excluding stinging insects, but I could see how that would match his energy.
Unboxing doesn’t seem like it really matches his vibe, I agree.
Befor the sting stuff they were a serious nature/ wildlife education channel It was good then, the other stuff was too over the top for me.
Interesting to know - thanks!
I recommend Stand-up Maths video on this where he tries to recreate the scale with a bigger sample size. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vv-lWg5HNaM
