Worst Year for Insect Stings

Worst Year for Stings

Using our own methodology we have tried to determine which year since our records began in 2003 has proven to be the worst of bee, wasp, and hornet stings. Due to the increase in the use of the internet and the changing algorithm of search engines the simple absolute number of visitors to the site is not an accurate method to determine the worst year.

Method 1 -Ratio of Peak Season to Low Season - absolute numbers

The first method we have used is to compare the year level of activity in the quiet months of January to March to the busy months of May to September and then the higher the ratio then the worse the sting season.

Year	Visitors in Jan to March, Nov - Dec	Visitors April to October	Ratio
2007	21113	113091	5.4
2006	18851	104427	5.5
2005	17603	92861	5.3
2004	19651	112105	5.7

We have not included 2003 as the site was growing during this year and results are almost certainly statisically inaccurate.

Method 2 - Visitors Rebased for January = 100

Year	Rebased so Jan = 100, Addition of all other months
2007	4747
2006	3849
2005	4470
2004	6340

We consider that these two methods are a reliable indicator and illustrate that 2004 was the worst year since our records began.

All statistical data is taken from the website www.insectstings.co.uk which is probably the leading website for insect sting related terms on the internet. The sheer volume of statistical data is therefore helpful when it comes to determining the level of insect stings activity in the environment and in particular the UK. However, there are inevitably limitations and some of these are indicated below:

Geographical Sample - we calculate that the for the year as a whole the site typically has 70% of visitors from the UK , 21% from North America, and the balance of 9% from approximately 85 other countries. Whilst the UK therefore dominates the results it is not the sole source of sting activity and we will be looking to some way of filtering non-UK results out of the system in the future.

Insect Sting Activity - not every searcher arrives on the website as a result of an insect sting - however the majority do and the top 15 terms all contain the term "sting" and account for 56% of traffic. In a typical year over 200,000 searchers arrive at the site using in excess of 5,000 different search terms but we would estimate that some 80-85% of searchers arrive at the site because of a sting incident. When there are comparatively few stings in January and February the traffic levels are some 3,000 per month - indicating a non-sting prompted visitor rate of about 18% for the year as a whole.

Underlying Web Activity - more and more people with web access means that each year more people will have access to the website and this would indicate that the site should see an underlying trend upwards in activity. In order to mitigate this to some degree we have rebased each year with January = 100 so that we can see trends within years as well as compare them meaningfully to other years.

Local Population - if there is a wasp nest or bee hive nearby then you have a higher chance of being stung so do not use this data as a predictor of sting risk in your locality. This site offers a UK wide sting risk measurement - an overall picture rather than a predictor for a limited area.

Worst Year for Stings

Interesting Resource

Worst Year for Stings