Strange things happen

I was riding back down Woods Hill Road from Summertown to Norton Summit mid morning today enjoying the warmth and the smooth surface and thinking about Prendas.co.uk and if their shipment of Italian gear had come in and how I should get some of their gloves because I loved their winter ones when I got a sudden sharp pain in my left thumb and I though a bee has crashed into me. Then as I took this occurance in five seconds later again a short sharp sting and I pulled at the thumb of my glove scratching at the location when out flew a bee (all this at 30km/h).

I've been stung on the chest before but the gap at my glove's thumb is pretty small.

Now 6 or so hours later it seems it didn't get me that much. There is no swelling or itching.

What are the chances!

Tags: bee

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Permalink Reply by Pete Roberts on October 13, 2011 at 21:29

It could have been worse........

.........It could have been ME ! :)

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Permalink Reply by Dahondude on October 13, 2011 at 21:38

Based on the spatio-temporal density of bees and assuming a random flight direction of all bees, multiplying the frontal area of your thumb as a fraction of your total frontal profile and surface area including your forward speed then I estimate the chances of being bitten on the thumb under your cycling glove on Woods Hill Rd is 0.00000000000000000000000000156 +/- 0.000000000000000000067. Based on this, yes you were very unlucky!

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Permalink Reply by Mike Brisco on October 14, 2011 at 12:00

Is this risk per person per second? Seems slightly low, butI agree with the conclusion you would be unlucky to get stung. .

Taking an average of 10,000 cyclists in Adelaide on any one day, riding 2 hours per day - on the above, the chance of any one of those cyclists being stung in their entire lifetime would be 0.000 000 000 000 000 4 ie never likely to happen to any of them. Never likely to happen to anyone anywhere.

But we know that is not true. Below, several cyclists actually report being stung. So we need to re-estimate those odds. Based on 3 of the posts below; Assuming a cyclist remembers a painful sting for 10 years; and can tell a bee from a wasp

Risk of being stung by a been when cycling, as (3/10,000 x 10x365x2x3600) = 0.000 000 000 011 4 per cyclist per second riding.

Lifetime risk, for any cyclist: 0.002, or 1 in 500.

So continue riding!

you are most unlikely to get stung.

Happy to revise the calculations if more data become available.