Forum:Silver damage with the Bell of Opening?

I'm playing a weaponless Monk and finally made it down to Gehennom. In the main dungeon I'd been relying on the finger of death spell, but of course that doesn't work in Gehennom with all the monsters that are already dead. So when I got surrounded by vampire lords and ice devils, I identified the silver ring I had in inventory, hoping that I could take off my gloves and deal silver damage with the ring. It turned out to be a ring of aggravate monster--not very useful. If I had been thinking straight I'd just have broken my wand of teleportation to give myself some space, but I was kind of losing focus, so I tried wielding the Bell of Opening to do silver damage. It "sears the vampire lord's flesh!", and I got out alive by casting many, many extra healings, but now I'm just curious as to whether wielding the Bell counts as hitting with a wielded weapon. I'm just curious, but if anybody knows anything about this, I'd love to know.