Honey bees are the only bees to die after stinging. This massive abdominal rupture kills the honey bee. When a female honey bee stings a person, it cannot pull the barbed stinger back out, but rather leaves behind not only the stinger, but also part of its abdomen and digestive tract, plus muscles and nerves. This process is repeated until the sting is fully in and even continues after the sting and its mechanism is detached from the bee's abdomen. When the other barb has caught, it also retracts up the stylus pulling the sting further in. The slides move alternately up and down the stylus so when the barb of one slide has caught and retracts, it pulls the stylus and the other barbed slide into the wound. The bee does not push the stinger in but it is drawn in by the barbed slides. The stinger consists of three parts: a stylus and two barbed slides (or lancets), one on either side of the stylus. Queen breeders who handle multiple queens and have the queen odor on their hands are sometimes stung by a queen. Her sting is not for defense of the hive she only uses it for dispatching rival queens, ideally before they can emerge from their cells. The queen bee has a barbed but smoother stinger and can, if need be, sting skin-bearing creatures multiple times, but the queen does not leave the hive under normal conditions. The female bees ( worker bees and queens) are the only ones that can sting, and their stinger is a modified ovipositor. ĭrone bees, the males, are larger and do not have stingers. The alarm pheromone emitted when a bee stings another animal smells like a banana. (Note: A bee swarm, seen as a mass of bees flying or clumped together, is generally not hostile it has deserted its hive and has no comb or young to defend.) 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. The release of alarm pheromones near a hive may attract other bees to the location, where they will likewise exhibit defensive behaviors until there is no longer a threat, typically because the victim has either fled or been killed. The sting's injection of apitoxin into the victim is accompanied by the release of alarm pheromones, a process which is accelerated if the bee is fatally injured. Queen honeybees and bees of many other species, including bumblebees and many solitary bees, have smoother stingers with smaller barbs, and can sting mammals repeatedly. īees with barbed stingers can often sting other insects without harming themselves. Bumblebee venom appears to be chemically and antigenically related to honeybee venom. In addition, the polypeptide melittin is also antigenic. The three proteins in honeybee venom which are important allergens are phospholipase A2, hyaluronidase and acid phosphatase. The venom of the honeybee contains histamine, mast cell degranulating peptide, melittin, phospholipase A2, hyaluronidase and acid phosphatase. Honey bees are the only hymenoptera with a strongly barbed sting, though yellow jackets and some other wasps have small barbs. Honey bees will actively seek out and sting when they perceive the hive to be threatened, often being alerted to this by the release of attack pheromones (below).Īlthough it is widely believed that a worker honey bee can sting only once, this is a partial misconception: although the stinger is in fact barbed so that it lodges in the victim's skin, tearing loose from the bee's abdomen and leading to its death in minutes, this only happens if the skin of the victim is sufficiently thick, such as a mammal's. Honey bee stings Microscope magnified image of a queen wasp's stinger, showing stylus and barbed lancets The left side of the image shows the ≈4 ☌ (7 ☏) temperature increase (saturated red zone) caused by a bee sting after about 28 hoursĪ honey bee that is away from the hive foraging for nectar or pollen will rarely sting, except when stepped on or roughly handled. While bee stinger venom is slightly acidic and causes only mild pain in most people, allergic reactions may occur in people with allergies to venom components. The reaction of a person to a bee sting may vary according to the bee species. Bee stings differ from insect bites, with the venom of stinging insects having considerable chemical variation. The stinger of a honey bee separated from the body and attached to a protective dressingĪntihistamine, epinephrine (for allergic reaction)Ī bee sting is the wound and pain caused by the stinger of a female bee puncturing skin.
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