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Comment by userbinator | Hacker News Reader

This gets a solid "nope" from me, and probably everyone else who has a memory of a very painful sting in their past.

I don't hate bees. At all. But the aggregated buzzing sound of a lot of tiny buzzy insects means one thing to me as homeowner: wasps found ingress and a nest was built somewhere in your house. It is a sound I do not want to hear anywhere near my house, because you can't let them be, and getting rid of them is a damn stupid chore which more often than not involves dismantling part of the house to even get at them. I did this once, and that was enough (didn't get stung though).

And you can't just poison them either. It leaves a wall full of honey that the cockroaches will find and feast for months or years. The whole hive has to be completely physically removed.

I've been stung a number of times by bees and wasps, but I still find them fascinating, and I would love to have one of these in my wall.

I would classify a bee sting as more of an irritating pain, like a stubbed toe.

You must not be allergic, then, because it lasts a lot longer than a stubbed toe, and much more painful than simply “irritating”.

I’d rather stub my toe 10 times than get stung by a bee — well, maybe not the same toe. :)

One bee sting's effects will last about five days, give or take.

A dozen bee stings' effects will last about two weeks, give or take a few days.

A hundred bee stings is life-threatening.

All that w/o allergies.

When I was a kid and used to hay the fields on our farm in the summers, I would get stung quite a bit from the ground wasps being kicked up by the hay bailing machines. I got so used to it that it would literally be like a mosquito bite. Annoying for less than 30 seconds. That was years ago, and my tolerance for stings isn't that high any longer. But even today a sting will be bothersome for maybe ten minutes, and within an hour the reaction will be gone completely.

Bees sting with a lot more poison than wasps. That's because their stingers are barbed and if they pierce far enough into your skin the stinger and its poison bag and poison pumping muscle will not leave your skin unless you pull it. The bee will fly away, but in doing so it will rip its guts out and later die. The stinger will then pump way more poison into you than a wasp would -- the wasp's stinger is not barbed.

One, yes. Many, no.

I have bees and it gets a nope from me for the inconvenience and potential damage factor. If it were better constructed, maybe. Bees can potentially bend the plexiglass or chew holes in the wood to escape. There are better designs out there.

Honeybees aren’t very aggressive with stings. Yellowjackets in the other hand are vicious if you’re disturbing their nests in any way. Any that establish themselves near my house will be dispatched with as soon as I notice them.

> Honeybees aren’t very aggressive with stings.

Depends on the bees! I was always pretty relaxed about bees, until a hive at my house turned mean. They would sting us just for daring to be near them, and by 'near' I don't mean we were approaching the hive -- just walking past it, or doing some gardening several metres away.

Australian natives sting is very minor, maybe even stingless. I've had to move them out of my water main box, thing, in the thousands without getting bitten once and only using latex gloves.

Africanized bees can be extremely aggressive.

As I've helped my beekeeping grandpa over the years I disagree. I've been stung twice (around thousands of bees) and both times they flew into my hair and could not get out.

I still do not like honey - unless I use it for cooking.

I would love one of these in my bedroom. I adore the sounds of bees. It's very relaxing.

Yeah, I have no particular animus towards bees but they terrify me. Without a doubt the thing I'm most afraid of on this earth. I would be a nervous wreck if I had this in my home.

You might secretly be an elephant.

You should check out some creatures living deep in the ocean. I cannot remember the name, but Lord, they terrify me. It looks like a centipede (ugh), and the way it catches fish is wild. I do not think I am referring to deep-sea amphipod though, but that is wild, too. The ocean is full of terrifying creatures. Bees are lovely in comparison.

Thoughts on centipedes though?

Jesus, I clicked expecting a big post about carpenter bees and found something far, far worse.

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