How dangerous are bee or wasp stings to a cat?
I think it will depend on whereabouts the cat is stung and exactly what insect stings it. Like humans, some cats can have a severe reaction when stung, whilst others suffer no more than discomfort. When our cat was just a couple of months old, she was stung on the mouth by a wasp/hornet that she had been playing with . She passed out and began to foam at the mouth, so we took her to the vets immediately. As we live overseas and didn’t recognise whether it was a wasp or hornet that had stung our cat, we wrapped the insect in a tissue to show to the vet. He gave the cat an injection, removed the sting and she was fine within twenty four hours. I think the combination of her youth and being stung on the mouth was what made our cat react so badly to being stung. Sad to say it hasn’t put her off chasing insects.
In general bee or wasp stings wouldn’t be too dangerous to cats, in a similar way that they aren’t always too dangerous for humans. However, some cats (again like humans) are allergic to the sting which can be quite serious. We have a moggy cat which is allergic to stings. On one occassion he got stung on the paw causing it to swell to approx 3 times its regular size. Since then we’ve kept a supply of Piroten anti-hystimine tablets just incase of re-occurrance. Other cats we’ve had have caught bees and wasps quite merrily without any side effects!
