Well, after Darren did a good job getting us all nervous about wasps, I’m here to calm you down again. I went to the Student Health Centre and also did some internet research and came up with these points:

• Wasps are not nearly as allergenic as bees and we mostly get wasps in beech forests. The doctor at the Health Centre basically said "don’t worry about the wasps".

• Quote: "Every time a person is stung, he or she builds both a greater tolerance and a greater intolerance for the next sting. The tolerance dissipates in roughly six months, but the intolerance continues to build throughout one’s lifetime. If you are stung frequently, your tolerance level remains high and overpowers your increasing intolerance. For this reason beekeepers, who may be stung often, do not have severe reactions to the stings. If, like most people, you are stung infrequently, your reactions to the stings are likely to be increasingly severe."

In other words you won’t have a massive allergic reaction the first time you get stung. You will also know whether you are allergic by your reaction to past stings. By the way, only 2 in 1000 people are actually allergic.

This also means that the allergy can be successfully held at bay by controlled injections of the bee allergen every 2 months.

• Given that the risk is low and adrenaline (which treats stung, allergic people) has a short shelf life, we will continue our current policy of not stocking adrenaline in the tramping club first aid kits but encouraging affected people to carry the medicine they need and tell others on the trip about it.

So that should cover it. If any of you know that you are allergic to beestings, please tell me (email is good).