Home remedies for bee stings

(Just a note - for some reason I'm having issues with the thingy that I type my blog in, sorry if it's hard to read for some reason...)

How many of you know a home remedy for bee stings?  Or several?  Well, guess what?  There are a LOT of home remedies for bee stings.  I remember as a child I got stung once and Daddy chewed up some tobacco from a cigarette to take the poison out. I also remember thinking that it didn't help much.

Well, Monkey got stung by a bee today. On her finger. She wasn't happy about it. Actually, she screamed. I thought it was her normal "I have a bug on me" scream, 

because those are usually the loudest, shrillest screams.  The kind that when it happens in our yard, I expect the neighbors to come running to see what's

going on. Anyway, I heard her scream so I look to see what bug had the audacity to land on her arm, when in fact it was a yellow-jacket on her finger, hanging by his stinger.

Apparently bee stings are on the same "screaming" level as an innocent flying bug that just happens to land on her arm. Only this time, there were great big tears. Luckily (or unluckily, since this

was probably why the bee was there in the first place) she was holding a cup with a snowcone inside. I scraped out the stinger and held her cup next to the finger to keep the cold on it.

As we were heading home, I called a friend and asked her what to do with a sting. I haven't had to deal with this as an adult so the only cure I remember is tobacco and since I don't smoke, 

I didn't have any tobacco to chew up. She said she remembered her mom using baking soda and something - either water or vinegar.

Well, since the fizzing of combining baking soda and vinegar on her finger would completely FREAK her out, I went with baking soda and water as soon as we got home. She's watching TV

now, completely distracted. So I took the time to do a little research on home remedies for stings.

Let's see, there's:

raw onion

honey

baking soda with vinegar and meat tenderizer

baking soda and water

tobacco

toothpaste

the insides of a tomato

aloe and/or lavender (I'm guessing the lavender is to calm the patient??)

mud

egg yolk

ammonia (aka urine)

a penny or a nickel placed on the sting

raw bacon wrapped around the sting (I guess cooked would be too tempting to eat)

aspirin

antiperspirant

plantain leaves plus a whole host of different herbal/holistic choices.

then there's all the different remedies you can find at the store.

At our house, the baking soda and water seemed to work pretty well, so we may stick to that. Or we might go with the toothpaste. If nothing else, the idea of putting toothpaste on a boo-boo

will distract them enough to keep tears at bay.