Feb 3rd, 2017: Honeybee Pain

[xoxoxoBruce]

When kids go off to college they're moldable raw material. Higher education does strange things to some, and
the higher they go, more the chance of them running away screaming or developing strange behavior.
Case in point, Michael L. Smith, PhD Candidate, Department of Neurobiology and Behavior at Cornell University.

Since 1990 the Schmidt Sting Pain Index has been the standard for measuring pain from stinging critters.
The index goes from 0 (I fart in your direction) to 4 (son-of-a-bitch) and Schmidt used the honeybee sting
as the standard at 2, because more people worldwide are familiar with it.

But Mr Smith said, but all Schmidt’s stings were on the forearm, is it the same all over?
He made up a chart of 25 spots to test.



He got 5 stings a day for three months prior to the experiment, to eliminate any allergic reactions.
He caught a bunch of hive guard Honeybees in a cage, grabbed them with forceps, and pressed them to flesh.
When he felt the sting he held the bee there for 5 seconds, pulled the bee off, and left the stinger in
for 1 minute. He did this 3 times, in each of the 25 locations, over 38 days.



As long as only he was involved in his experiment, he avoided a bunch of legal, ethical, and
political obstacles, but with just one subject the results aren’t taken seriously by the medical community.
Personally, I feel it should earn him his PhD* though.

*Personal hell Deliberately

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