Hives

One reason this Swedish quintet was such a refreshing arrival here two years ago was that it came with a secret weapon: a smile. From its snappy wardrobe and self-congratulatory stage patter to its hyperactive mix of punk and garage rock, the Hives seemed not only smart but also blessed with a limitless imagination. "Yes, America, you love us," lead singer Howlin' Pelle Almqvist told the opening-night audience that spring at the Roxy in Los Angeles. "We've come to take over your country and change everything.

Sufferers of chronic hives and rashes could benefit from a commonly-used asthma drug, Johns Hopkins researchers have found. Scientists found that a once-a-month dose of the drug omalizumab helped ease symptoms that standard antihistamines didn't. The drug was tested on 323 peple at 55 medical centers from 2009 to 2011. The subjects were mostly women and between the ages of 12 and 75. The participants had suffered with chronic hives and rash for at least six months and many had dealt with the condition for more than five years.

Question: : My son, age 14, has suffered from chronic idiopathic urticaria (hives) for five years. Several months ago, your column featured another person suffering from hives. He had success with vitamin C, so we decided to try it. My son is now taking 1,000 mg of vitamin C twice a day. He has been able to stop two of his three medications, Zyrtec and famotidine. With his doctor's approval, he has halved his Allegra prescription. We are so thankful! Answer: : We found nothing recent in the medical literature on this approach.

A traveling EDM festival might have seemed like a far-fetched notion, but Live Nation's IDentity is returning this year, with a show planned at Jiffy Lube Live again. The festival, which last year attracted big-timer Kaskade, back when when he didn't headline arenas, and Hercules and Love Affair, consists of genre stars - this year it's Wolfgang Gartner, Nero, and Paul Van Dyk, among others - taking turns at the turntables for several hours before an arena crowd. Kaskade, presumably, was busy with his own arena tour . Live Nation did not disclose last year's attendance numbers with Billboard, which ran the press release . Nice detail: "IDENTITY's sponsors include Rockstar Energy Drink, Emazing Lights, Slurpee, TIGI Bedhead, and Lifestyle Condoms.

The common honey bee is not on the endangered species list -- at least, not yet. But its numbers are dwindling dramatically here in Howard County and throughout the United States. Thomas Price, president ofthe Howard County Beekeepers Association, is worried. All of the bees in eight of his 10 hives died over the past winter, and those losses are mirrored throughout the county this year.Tiny mites are theculprits. Two predatory mite species that have invaded the U.S. in the past few years use any member of the bee family as hosts, and theymean death to the bees they infest.

NEW YORK The setting -- the rooftop of a brownstone on West 113th Street in Manhattan -- hardly evoked the lazy bee-hum of rusticity. Looming to the north was the brick bulk of Butler Library at Columbia University. To the southeast jutted the latticework scaffolding of the ever-unfinished Cathedral of St. John the Divine.Suddenly, the swirl of bees hanging around two honeybee hives formed a cloud about the heads of four of the brownstone's inhabitants, Jill Laurie Goodman and her three children, urban beekeepers all. "Just look at them," Ms. Goodman said proudly of her bees, as if she were acknowledging a blue-ribbon Charolais steer at the county fair.

Tiny European honeybees certainly aren't pets, but are they farm animals? That's how Howard County zoning enforcement officials classified them after retiree Sam Peperone complained nearly two years ago about his backyard neighbor's beehives in Columbia. A swarm of the honeybees buzzed around the water dripping from his air conditioner in April 2008, and the federal retiree feared his grandchildren could be stung and his home's value diminished, he said. But instead of eliminating Dan and Jeri Hemerlein's hives, Peperone's complaint has stirred up a community of bee enthusiasts to press the county for a change in the zoning law, and it looks as if they might succeed.

Billions od commercially employed honeybees - vital to the production of nearly 100 food crops across North America -- have buzz off. Beekeepers say their industrious workers have been vanishing mysteriously from stores, their developing offspring and a forlorn queen and her attendants. There have been other such "colony collapses," or "dwindles," in past decades, experts say. But this one appears to be the most serious - in the number of abandoned hives, their coast-to-coast geography and their duration.

For people with severe venom allergy, insect stings may be life-threatening. They may experience itching and hives, swelling in the throat or tongue, difficulty breathing, dizziness, stomach cramps, nausea or diarrhea and even shock and loss of consciousness. -- American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology

Dr. Ralph Hudson Johnson, 59, director of postgraduate medical education and training at Oxford University, died after being stung by a swarm of bees Thursday, police said. Dr. Johnson was tending his hives at his home in the village of Overy, southeast of Oxford, when the swarm got under his hat and face mask. He was stung hundreds of times on his head and face, collapsed and died, Oxford police said Sunday.

As Jason Hough steers his Chevy Silverado along the curving country roads of western Howard County, he makes a habit of stopping and slowly backing up his truck to trade friendly gibes with fellow farmers he's caught sight of in his rearview mirror. One neighbor, after confiding that his alfalfa isn't drying all that well in the recent humidity, promises he won't snitch to Hough's wife about his female passenger. Another wants to know why a reporter riding shotgun doesn't have anything better to do than write about honeybees.

The tiny honeybees in Dan and Jeri Hemerlein's six hives in their big Columbia backyard are dedicated work-a-day drudges, oblivious to the passions they've stirred in humans across Maryland. But in a search for water next door in retiree Sam Peperone's yard, the bees set off a Howard County zoning fight that has lasted close to three years and drawn hundreds of bee supporters to a series of public hearings over the last 18 months. The local dispute has highlighted what experts say is a global trend, and Howard County has become a flashpoint in the debate over growing interest among home beekeepers, more than 3,000 of whom are registered in Maryland alone.

Howard County beekeepers are looking to the County Council for zoning relief after the planning board unanimously recommended denial of a proposal that would allow hives within 25 feet of an adjoining property. The board also concluded hearing testimony Thursday night on a plan to build 325 new homes on a portion of historic Doughoregan Manor but put off discussion of a recommendation on that issue until Feb. 19. Bees are now in the same zoning category as farm animals in Howard, which means the hives must be at least 200 feet from an adjoining property, a rule so restrictive it prompted an outpouring of support in November from beekeepers across the Baltimore area advocating for a change.

Question: : My son, age 14, has suffered from chronic idiopathic urticaria (hives) for five years. Several months ago, your column featured another person suffering from hives. He had success with vitamin C, so we decided to try it. My son is now taking 1,000 mg of vitamin C twice a day. He has been able to stop two of his three medications, Zyrtec and famotidine. With his doctor's approval, he has halved his Allegra prescription. We are so thankful! Answer: : We found nothing recent in the medical literature on this approach.

Tiny European honeybees certainly aren't pets, but are they farm animals? That's how Howard County zoning enforcement officials classified them after retiree Sam Peperone complained nearly two years ago about his backyard neighbor's beehives in Columbia. A swarm of the honeybees buzzed around the water dripping from his air conditioner in April 2008, and the federal retiree feared his grandchildren could be stung and his home's value diminished, he said. But instead of eliminating Dan and Jeri Hemerlein's hives, Peperone's complaint has stirred up a community of bee enthusiasts to press the county for a change in the zoning law, and it looks as if they might succeed.

Question: : I have to use insect repellent every time I go outside. When I also need sunscreen, which goes on first? Answer: : This straightforward question has no simple answer. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend that "sunscreens should be applied to the skin before insect repellents." In the next sentence, however, the CDC advises travelers not to use combination products containing both repellents and sunscreens. It points out that "DEET-containing insect repellents may decrease the effectiveness of sunscreens and sunscreens may increase absorption of DEET through the skin."

Buzz off.That appeared to be the message of some 4,000 fugitive honeybees that escaped Thursday at a Cecil County truck stop and stung several employees and customers.A rip in the netting over a flatbed truck allowed part of a bee colony to fly out and swarm around a 16-pump fuel island at the Petro Truck Stop on Belle Hill Road off Interstate 95 in Elkton.Witnesses said the driver of the truck left without his agitated "passengers.""The driver pulled into our fuel island, and every place he stopped, bees got off," said Mike Daniels, general manager for the truck stop.

It is the season of baseball games, picnics, backyard barbecues ... and all kinds of insects. If you've ever been stung by a bee or wasp, you know it's no fun at all. For many people, a sting can be a serious matter, says Dr. David Golden, associate professor of medicine at the Johns Hopkins University and chief of the allergy division at Franklin Square and Sinai hospitals. What constitutes an allergic reaction to insect stings? There are different kinds of allergic reactions: If you get stung and have pain and itching, that is normal.