Fear of Bees (Apiphobia): Symptoms, Treatments, & How to Cope

What Is Apiphobia?

Apiphobia (also called melissophobia) is a specific phobia involving a severe and debilitating fear of bees. As opposed to other forms of anxiety where the worry involves thoughts about the future, a phobia is a strong emotional response to a real or perceived immediate threat—in this case, fear of bees.¹ A person with melissophobia is aware that their reaction is irrational, but they can’t stop their fear reaction.² Others, though, may fear bees and all similar insects such as hornets, wasps, and yellow jackets.³

The bee-triggered intense anxiety and even panic attacks happen out of fear of stings, either the ensuing pain or thoughts of death caused by an allergic reaction (or both).⁴ Someone experiencing melissophobia may exclusively fear bees and feel fine around other stinging bugs.⁴ Having a fear of bees is one of the most common types of animal phobias.^3,6

“A fear of bees is quite common. In some of our studies, as many as 20% of children will express this fear, says Thomas H. Ollendick, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus for Virginia Tech’s Department of Psychology. “This and other fears are quite common. For many children, this fear will subside over time but for about 5% of children the fear will persist and evolve into a specific phobia.”

Normal Fear of Bees Vs. Bee Phobia

A modest fear of bees is a healthy reaction and serves as a protective factor. Bees sometimes sting, and the fear response is designed to prevent us from harm. A phobia extends beyond this healthy reaction and is an irrational fear. Bee phobia involves a strong sensation of fright upon seeing bees (a lone bee or a swarm) in person, viewing photos of bees, seeing objects that resemble bees, hearing stories about bees, or sometimes even thinking about bees.^4,5

Can Bees Sense Fear?

Experts agree that bees seem able to notice and detect the stress pheromones produced by people during times of fear. This is why beekeepers use smoke to disrupt their senses. Bees do not respond to this sense with aggression, though. They only use this information to communicate threats to the rest of the hive.

Symptoms of Bee Phobias

The symptoms of melissophobia are similar to those of all other phobias. They involve strong emotional, physical, and behavioral reactions and feel extremely intense. In the case of melissophobia, the symptoms occur upon any type of exposure to bees. To be considered a diagnosable phobia, symptoms must have occurred for at least six months. Additionally, they must occur every time you are exposed in some way to bees.

When someone is exposed to bees, symptoms of melissophobia can include:^2,4,6,7

• Immediate and intense sense of fear and anxiety
• Possible panic attacks
• The fear, anxiety, or panic are out of proportion to the actual degree of threat (for example, having intense fear around a single bee)
• Agitation
• Increased heart rate
• Increased blood pressure
• Sweating
• Shaking
• Difficulty breathing
• Chest tightness
• Dizziness
• Nausea
• Muscle tension
• Awareness that your reaction is too strong but an inability to stop it
• Avoidance that disrupts life

Impacts of Melissophobia

The symptoms of melissophobia can be so unpleasant that people want to avoid them at all costs, and unfortunately, that cost is often high. Melissophobia can interfere in functioning in all areas of life, including work, relationships, and location for living.^2,4,8 Avoiding bees and their potential stings can affect life choices and be very limiting. It’s common for people to purposefully take extreme measures to avoid bee exposure, even if it causes inconvenience and disrupts life.

Because of an intense fear of bees, people sometimes choose to avoid the outdoors and the fun and healthy activities associated with nature. Some people may even choose to live in an apartment in a city rather than in an area with a yard or near a park just to minimize chance encounters with bees.

When avoidance is extreme, it may be the only noticeable symptom of apiphobia. Because someone has minimized their exposure, they don’t have opportunities to react in anxiety, fear, and panic.²

What Causes Someone to Develop a Phobia of Bees?

While the cause of melissophobia is often unknown, certain factors are linked to the development of fear of bees.^2,4,6,7

Traumatic Event or Secondary Exposure

This fear is often learned, frequently developing after an intense or traumatic exposure to bees, such as an unexpected and very painful stumbling upon a nest. The phobia can also develop upon hearing disturbing reports involving the danger of bees, either in the news or from loved ones and acquaintances.

Hearing Scary Stories About Bees

Stories of Africanized honey bees (aka killer bees), for example, can be so frightening that they lead to the development of bee phobia. Similarly, having an unexpected panic attack, such as those of panic disorder, occur near bees can create an association between panic and bees that inadvertently leads to melissophobia.²

Ollendick mentions, “With children, the fear is frequently associated with the way the bee flies near them or around them and the buzzing sounds they make. Interestingly, although some fear of bees can be related to being stung by a bee, most children have not been stung. Rather, they have heard stories about bees and how dangerous they can be; they might also have seen video clips of bees and/or have friends or parents who express such fears. Warnings of ‘be careful’ and ‘don’t go outside’ are messages that contribute to the fears. In most instances, bees do not sting unless they have been ‘harassed’ in some way!”

Genetic Influences

Other causes may involve individual personality or genetics.^2,4,6 Phobias are believed to be heritable, which means that having a first degree relative (a parent, sibling, or child) with a phobia increases your chances of developing the same phobia.

Higher Levels of Anxiety & Neuroticism

People prone to experience anxiety or who are high in the personality trait neuroticism may be at increased risk of developing one or more phobias, including a phobia of bees.²

How to Get Over a Fear of Bees

Living with a fear of bees can be difficult and frustrating. It doesn’t have to continue to limit your life, however. There are approaches you can take to cope with melissophobia, reduce avoidance, and reclaim your life.

Try these eight tips, starting with one that appeals to you and gradually adding others to your repertoire of skills:^{2,4,6,7,9,10,11}

1. Educate yourself: Rather than feeling like you’re at the mercy of all the bee horror stories out there, challenge yourself to learn all you can about bees so you know when stings are likely and when they aren’t (did you know that bees rarely sting, only doing so when threatened and if you don’t scream and swat, they don’t feel threatened?
2. Be prepared: If you know you are allergic to bee stings, talk with your doctor to get an emergency epipen and always have it with you. If you are afraid of the pain and itching caused by being stung, have an emergency bee kit with antihistamine, hydrocortisone cream, and pain relievers like acetaminophen, aspirin, or ibuprofen.
3. Reduce the likelihood of stings: You don’t have to avoid certain areas in order to prevent stings. Instead, don’t wear dark clothing outdoors when bees are around, and prevent bees from colonizing around your home by ridding your property of standing water, sticky debris (don’t place your recycling bin full of soda cans near your home), and items like overturned flower pots. Caulking cracks around your foundation will help keep bees out of your home.
4. Enlist support: Joining support groups for melissophobia can help you feel validated and gain new skills. Also, having understanding, supportive people around you when you are near bee-prone areas can help you remain calm.
5. Do some reality testing: A strategy used in cognitive behavioral therapy, this involves identifying your thoughts and beliefs, questioning them to expand your perspective, and rating their degree of accuracy. This can help you change your reaction to bees.
6. Use mindfulness, meditation, yoga, and relaxation strategies: In melissophobia, the amygdala (the brain’s emotional center) is highly active and over-reactive. Mindfulness, meditation, yoga, and relaxation techniques such as progressive muscle relaxation help reduce activity in the amygdala as well as deactivate the sympathetic nervous system (responsible for fight-flight-or-freeze and the symptoms of bee phobia).
7. Practice consistent self-care: Taking care of your brain and body by getting proper nutrition, hydration, exercise, and sleep will help power them and keep them functioning optimally. This can help prevent fatigue and poor health, which contribute to emotional reactivity in the brain. Instead, your brain and body will be equipped to function well.
8. Celebrate your successes: Celebrating even small victories, such as remaining in the room when a coworker starts telling tales of their beekeeping hobby, is a powerful way to retrain your brain. The act of celebrating, such as rewarding yourself with a healthy treat or time to enjoy something fun, releases dopamine in the brain and reinforces the brain that it did something good. Next time you’re exposed to bees in some way, you just might find your reaction to be a little bit milder.

When to See a Medical Professional

When the fear of bees begins to interfere with your daily life, work, or responsibilities at home, it’s time to see a medical or mental health professional. When preparing for the visit, be sure to spend some time thinking about your symptoms and what you would like to be different.

How Is Apiphobia Diagnosed?

The fear of bees is a common specific phobia that is diagnosed by a professional through a comprehensive evaluation. Not only do bees need to create high levels of stress and worry, but the fear must routinely disrupt your life for you to receive a diagnosis of melissophobia.

Melissophobia Treatments

Melissophobia doesn’t always require treatment. Often, it can be managed with a collection of coping skills. However, when melissophobia begins to significantly interfere in your life, causing avoidance and other symptoms that surpass a mild annoyance or inconvenience, professional treatment may be in order. Treatment options for phobias include therapy and, sometimes, medication.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)

When you work with a therapist using CBT for melissophobia, you’ll examine your negative thoughts and beliefs about bees to increase insights into your thought patterns. You’ll also learn coping skills to reduce anxiety about bees. As you learn to think about bees differently, you’ll be able to change your automatic fear reaction to respond more intentionally when exposed to bees.

Exposure Therapy

Exposure therapy is one of the most common and effective approaches to reducing melissophobia because it desensitizes you and dampens your body’s fear reaction. When treating melissophobia, it involves gradually exposing you to bees, starting with talking about bees with the therapist, then perhaps looking at pictures of bees and incrementally intensifying your exposure until you come face to face with live bees with your therapist and eventually on your own. Along the way, you explore your thoughts and feelings to help develop a healthier perspective and response.

Fear Ladder for Exposure Therapy to Bees

A fear ladder or fear hierarchy is a list of exposure activities that starts with a very mild fear and ends with the most intense bee-related situation. By using this step-by-step process, professionals desensitize someone’s fear methodically each session.

Each person’s fear ladder will be unique to them and their fears, but here is an example of a fear hierarchy for bees:

• Thinking about a bee
• Seeing a picture of a bee
• Watching a video of a bee
• Seeing a caged bee in real life far away
• Seeing a caged bee closer
• Touching a bee
• Holding a bee
• Letting a bee crawl on you
• Allowing many bees to fly around you/ crawl on you

Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy

Virtual reality exposure therapy works the same way as traditional exposure therapy. In the case of virtual exposure, though, technology allows people to experience their fears in a simulated format rather than directly. Rather than visiting a field of bee-attracting flowers in person, you’ll experience such a bee haven virtually.

Psychotherapy

Talk therapy helps people explore the root of their fear to develop insights into it. It can also help people set goals and learn effective coping skills. While not generally as effective for phobias as CBT and exposure therapy, psychotherapy may be helpful for those whose fear is mildly bothersome but not intensely life disruptive.

Finding a Therapist

Finding the right therapist can help you overcome melissophobia. You can look for a good fit be searching an online therapist directory or by asking your primary care provider for a referral.

Medication

Sometimes, medication for anxiety can be helpful in treating melissophobia; however, it is typically used in conjunction with therapy because it isn’t effective as a stand-alone treatment for bee phobia.^4,6,10 When prescribed, medication can help reduce symptoms of anxiety, maximizing the effectiveness of therapy.

Medications used in treating melissophobia include:

• Antidepressants such as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) or tricyclic antidepressants
• Anti-anxiety medications like benzodiazepines or other tranquilizers
• Beta blockers, medication for high blood pressure that block adrenaline to reduce physiological anxiety symptoms

Final Thoughts on Melissophobia

Having a fear of bees is unpleasant at best and life-disrupting at worst. While it can be difficult to overcome, you can take measures to help your brain and body be less reactive to bees. You don’t have to forever be held captive by bees.