Fortunately, it’s not as dire as you think. To get the specifics of why some people are allergic to bees and whether the two are correlated, we spoke withAndrea Burke, M.D., a board-certified allergist and immunologist based in New York City.
Why Are People Allergic to Bees?
When a bee—or any stinging insect—stings you, the barb containing the venom attaches to your muscle, injecting a little bit of its venom into your system. The venom includes certain proteins that can potentially cause allergic reactions. This is known asvenom hypersensitivity.
There’s a broad spectrum of possible reactions to a bee sting. “A non-allergic person can get stung and experience a localized inflammatory response as a result of a sting and venom that’s injected,” Burke explains. Even without a bee allergy, it’s likely a person will have a localized reaction from the sting, such as a red circle around the area they were stung, as well as some swelling.
However, if you have an actual bee allergy, you could experience anaphylaxis, which will affect the whole body. “The allergy cells (called mast cells) throughout the body are activated, and it can trigger a cascade leading to a full-body reaction,” she says. “Different parts of the body are triggered to react, like constriction in the lungs, vomiting, hives and swelling.”
While Burke makes it known that the science isn’t exactly clear where a bee allergy comes from, researchers speculate that it could be related to genetics. According to the World Allergy Organization, at least 40 people die in the U.S. each year due to venom anaphylaxis.
How to Find Out If You Have a Bee Allergy
The first is skin testing. Allergists will take some of the harvested venom from different insects that cause the allergy and place it on your skin, then prick the skin with a sterile probe to see if a little red hive will surface. If it’s negative or inconclusive, the allergist will inject more underneath the skin to again look for a red hive.
Second, a patient can test for the antibody through a blood test. If you have an allergy antibody that recognizes venom at a high enough level, a doctor could diagnose the allergy.
So If I’m Allergic to Bee Stings, Do I Need to Avoid Honey?
Is Honey Healthier Than Sugar?
Thankfully, if you have a bee sting allergy you are not necessarily allergic to honey. Why? Because these two impacts from the bee are coming from two different parts of the insect’s body.
Bee sting allergies come from the venom, which is part of the stinger. However, honey is transferred from the nectar that comes from the honeybee’s tongue, called a proboscis. The venom sack is not at all connected, meaning the honey is completely free of the proteins that cause the allergy. Burke says she does not worry about her patients with bee allergies enjoying honey, and that it can be consumed regularly.
Can You Be Allergic to Honey?
While a bee allergy is not correlated with honey, a separate honey allergy is possible—although it is quite rare and unrelated to the venom itself.
“I’ve probably had less than a handful of patients in my career so far where a person has a reaction to honey,” says Burke. “What’s believed to be the reaction there is coming from the local pollen naturally accumulating in the area. What’s in the air at the time could potentially contaminate the honey.”
If you have a pollen allergy, Burke says you may experience some itching when you eat honey. But there’s typically very little pollen in honey, so the chances of a person with a pollen allergy experiencing anaphylaxis from eating honey is very low. If this was to happen, Burke says it would mean the person was highly allergic to pollen and the honey would have to have a significant amount of pollen in it. So the average person doesn’t need to worry about it, given how rare and unique it is.
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