Something like that happened to my brother. My dad had beehives in a corner of the back yard. I recall jars of honey lined up on shelves in the basement.
My brother had observed my father harvesting the honey so one day he thought he'd try it. He just walked up to one of the hives and pulled the top off. The bees were not pleased. He had like a million stings. Our family doctor came to the house. They did that in those days. There wasn't a lot he could do though. My brother just had to wait for the swelling to go down.

I'm fortunate in that I'm not at all allergic to bee stings. When I get stung it hurts like a bastard but that's the extent of it. I rub the sting to de-concentrate the venom and within an hour or two it's pretty much gone.