-
Asked by 374evnb33 to Thomas, Adam, Thad on 18 Mar 2015.
-
Thomas Clements answered on 18 Mar 2015:
Great question!!!
So bee are really fascinating – I once wrote a paper on them!
Bees live in a colony. There is one female queen (who is the only reproductively active female) and the worker bees. The male worker bees are often larger and do not have stingers. The female worker bees are the only ones that can sting, and their stinger is a modified ovipositor (the organ used to lay eggs). The queen also has a stinger – but they primarily use it only to kill rival queens.
Bees have a barbed stinger (it has backward facing hooks). Sometimes the stinger will lodge in the flesh of the target – this often leads to the abdomen of the bee being left behind with the guts attached, causing the bee to die.
It is a common misconception that a bee sting will always kill the bee who administered it. Although this often happens when a mammal is stung (because we have thick skin), if a bee stings another insect it can do it repeatedly.
Another function of a bee sting is to administer a toxin called melittin. This is what causes the itchy pain that comes with a sting! It is often used to kill intruding insects from the colony and can even be fatal to birds!
When a bee stings it also releases and injects pheromones, which are chemicals used to alert any other bees nearby of trouble. These chemical are much more intense if the bee dies during stinging! These chemicals attract other bees who will attack the source of the pheromones. These pheromones do not dissipate or wash off quickly, and if their target enters water, bees will resume their attack as soon as it leaves the water.Interestingly, this chemical smells like bananas to humans.
-
-
anon answered on 19 Mar 2015:
I find it really interesting that the bee’s stinger is a modified ovipositor (the thing they lay their eggs with). The theory is that the bee’s wasp-like ancestors laid their eggs into other insects so needed an ovipositor that could inject eggs into something quite solid. Over time the substances injected by the ovipositor became venomous probably because that made it easier for the bee’s ancestors to subdue the insect they were trying to inject eggs into (yucky!). But now bees don’t inject eggs into anything like that – but they still inject the venom, which is what stings, as Thomas said!
-
Thaddeus Aid answered on 19 Mar 2015:
Hi,
Looks like my friends the other scientists got to this much faster than I could.
Comments