Baking Soda For Bee Stings

This is a remedy my mother used on me when I was a child, and it actually worked quite well. I have no education in medicine, but I can tell you from experience that baking soda is a very effective tool when treating a bee sting. My mother would first remove the stinger if it was still in the skin. To avoid sqeezing more venom from the stinger, she would scrape it with a plastic card at about a 45 degree angle. Using tweezers or your fingers is not good practice. She would then pour a couple grams of baking soda in a small saucer, and mix a bit of water in it- just enough to make it into a thick paste. She would then apply the paste on the bee sting, and allow the baking soda paste to dry. Usually, she would leave it on for about 20 minutes. Sometimes, after the paste had dried, she would wipe it off with a damp cloth and re-apply more paste where the sting was. I don't know the science of it, but it took the pain away in about half a minute. I believe I read somewhere that the baking soda treatment only works if the venom is acidic, but I can't be sure. However, I can verify that there are multiple bee sting products sold in stores with baking soda as the main ingredient.