"Rod" wrote in message
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[...]

Sounds more like blood poisoning to me - the symptoms just don't match
up. In any case, the allergy is very rare though the number of people
claiming to be allergic is quite high. A painful inflamed swollen area
around the sting - even quite a large swelling is in the spectrum of
normal symptoms, it is not an allergic reaction.
The allergy is extremely serious and sufferers will know about it. As
I understand it the first episode is not usually fatal but subsequent
ones can be.

This is true. Lots of people claim an allergy when they don't have one but
bee stings can be very unpleasant and quite dangerous for anybody. Also in
the vicinity of a hive you are far far more likely to receive multiple
stings because they have something of a mob mentality. Bees these days are
very much more liable to be bad tempered too, so old gardeners who have
memories of docile bees should not be relied upon. Beekeepers have more or
less totally mongrelised or destroyed native wild bees so that bees now show
all kinds of odd behaviours, the most obvious of which is aggression, often
made worse by the stress caused by the large numbers of parasites that have
been introduced.

IOW say a clear no to hives on the allotments. Beware of anything a
beekeeper tells you.

Tim w