So yesterday I had a reasonably bad reaction to a sting.

Within 15 minutes I was hot, shaking, dizzy, being sick and developed a rather fetching rash and apparently went red as a beetroot. I never felt short of breath or that I was seconds away from keeling over but I did eventually take myself, with the help of a friend off to Hospital to get myself checked out. They gave me a bunch of a steroids and antihistamines kept me in for an hour to make sure I didn't expire and sent met off with a week long course of antihistamines and the somewhat less than helpful advice of "don't get stung if you can help it".

So I guess the question is, should I be considering packing it in? Is a thicker pair of gloves that the bees can't sting through and being far less tolerant of aggressive colonies enough?

Might it just have been a one-off reaction or is that a really silly assumption to make?

I realise that this is an internet forum and the proper thing to do is probably go see my GP before going anywhere near a beehive again, but I've been stung before with no real adverse affects at all and certainly nothing like this so I'd be interested in hearing other peoples experiences and if there are any useful links to what's known about reactions to stings, why it happens and why can get worse.