I love the outdoors. I love backpacking. I love everything about it except: flying stinging insects.
Mosquitoes, deer flies, horseflies, blackflies don't bother me at all. Hornets, yellow jackets, wasps, honeybees, etc. scare me to death.
I'm not allergic, I just have a true phobia.
If a bee comes around, I jump, squeal and run. Not exactly the most masculine thing, especially when you do it when meeting your girlfriend's parents for the first time.
Because of this, I tend to limit my excursions to early spring or late late fall, when it's too cold for them to be out and about.
But I want to get more into backpacking and being outdoors, and realize that unless I come up with some amazing invention to scare bees away, this is something I will have to deal with.
So my question is, have any of you been absolutely terrified of bees & wasps and found a way to get over it and enjoy the outdoors like a normal adult?
I've gone so far as to ask a couple of beekeepers to LET ME get stung by a few bees thinking it may help me realize how silly this is. (They declined to due not wanting any sort of liability, thanks lawyers!)
I do realize it's just a little pinch. Unfortunately, this information has not helped me at all. The only time I have been stung was in Summer of 1984 when I was 4, read into that what you would like.