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Why are honeybee stingers barbed? (self.askscience)
submitted 5 months ago by Tattorack to c/askscience
13 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

There are many other bee species that can sting Humans and survive, but the European honeybee has a barbed stinger, so it cannot remove the stinger once it's stung. In attempting to remove the stinger the bee will rupture its lower abdomen and then die.

Why? What is the evolutionary advantage to that?

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[–] givesomefucks 77 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (2 children)

When the stinger gets pulled out of the bee, the sac with the venom comes out too, still attached to the singer

Attempts to remove it injects more venom.

The life of the bee is worth less than the increased deterrent to animals attacking the hive.

The life of a handful of bees really isn't worth much at all to the hive. So even when there's no longer giant ass bears going after hives, there's not a lot of pressure for the bee to lose the barb.

Edit:

It's also important to remember that evolution isn't just competing against predators/prey. It's competing against competitors too.

If one hive of bees has barbs and worse stings than the one next to it, the one without barbs is gonna get attacked.

So the barbs don't have to be enough to convince predators that honey is never worth the sting, just that this honey is more painful to get than that honey.

Overtime the less painful honey may be pushed out of the local ecosystem. At which point it's just barbed bees, and the cycle might start over again with another way stings are more painful.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

I just wanted to add that the worker bees with stingers are dead ends in the lifecycle anyhow. Only the queen will lay eggs and only the drones (stingerless) can mate with her. (Unless the years have really screwed up my memory!)

[–] givesomefucks 24 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Workers and queens are female.

A young female when given royal jelly triggers it becoming a queen and reproductive organs instead of a stinger.

The males are drones. They have male reproductive organs instead of stingers, and they just hang out and try to bone the queen.

But the worker bees are the ones that actually, you know, do the work.

So that's why European bees won't "swarm" someone and all sting them. You get a few warning shots and a chance to retreat, just moving away is enough for it to stop.

Meanwhile, African bees had to deal with shit like honey badgers. And as we're all aware, the honey badger gives very little fucks about anything.

So they don't half ass defense, they send out a shit ton of bees that won't stop until the threat is chased away and keeps running away. If they didn't the honey badger wouldnt even notice.

Then some genius decided to cross breed the species, and we get "Africanized killer bee" that treat everything they come across as a honey badger.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago (2 children)

I wonder if that would sometimes be a desirable trait in farmed bees in areas with a lot of predators or competitors.

Like, the human knows that protection will be required and will suit up accordingly, but the ants, wasps or bears that try to rob the hive will be much less successful.

[–] givesomefucks 10 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Yeah, I think that was the reasoning.

But they forgot that life finds a way and the hybrids wouldn't just stay where they put them.

They not only outcompete European hives, they'll straight up raid and destroy other hives stealing their young.

Because their African half evolved in a resource scarce environment. If they run across other bees they view it as a direct threat on their resources. Pretty sure it also causes them to establish new hives much further away than European bees. Which is why they keep spreading so fast.

I'm just glad no one's tried to crossbreed honey badgers with wolves to combat the hybrid bees yet.

[–] edgemaster72 5 points 5 months ago

That's okay, I know how to help the bees against the honey wolverines

[–] Tattorack 4 points 5 months ago

Sounds like something that would be very disruptive to the local ecosystem. A beehive covers an incredibly large area for its honey making operation...

[–] Tattorack 3 points 5 months ago

Thank you for your answer!

[–] Boozilla 10 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Except for the young and the pregnant, we're all wearing red shirts out here. In nature, most living things are highly disposable.

It's an uncomfortable truth that is also weirdly comfortable at times. As far as nature is concerned I'm a spear carrier who should have been dead a long time ago...this is all gravy, baby!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

I'm pretty sure most creatures in nature die before they are adults.

[–] PunnyName 6 points 5 months ago

It has a harder time with softer flesh. Apparently the barbed stinger can be retracted while dealing with the exoskeletons of various arthropods.

[–] Modern_medicine_isnt 5 points 5 months ago (1 children)

My bs answer... they want the thing they sting to know if was them.

[–] Tattorack 6 points 5 months ago

"Witness me!!"

Dies.