Do they instinctively “know” they will die by stinging a human?
In: Biology
Bees aren’t self centered creatures. Self survival is less important than the strength and health of the hive. We could learn a thing or two from them.
I’m a beekeeper. Many of the responses here re: bees reacting to stimuli, rather than making egocentric decisions, are correct. Bees primarily sting when they detect an increase in pheromones that are released when other bees are squished. That’s why many species of bees, especially honeybees, are docile when handled as long as you’re gentle. They sting in defense once there’s a chemical indicator that others nearby have been killed, and because their instinct is to protect their hive, they will do so without regard for their individual self-preservation.
The simple answer is no, they are not. I’ll assume you’re referring to honeybees since the fact they’re a colony superorganism is important.
When a guard bee identifies a threat to the colony, whether it’s another bee that smells wrong, or a wasp or a badger, she’ll first try to defuse the situation by chasing off the perceived threat. If you’ve ever gotten too close to a hive, you may have noticed that one or perhaps two bees buzz you first, and then they’ll head-butt you to try to get you to move away. Only then will they actually sting.
Once they sting, the chemicals take over. The venom contains an alarm pheromone which contains isopentyl acetate which smells like pears (to me, at least – other beekeepers have said it smells like bananas). This is produced by a gland next to the sting and it puts all the other bees onto DEFCON 1. Obviously they won’t all attack, but a few will, focusing on the original sting area, stinging that again. If the threat still doesn’t retreat, more bees will attack and this continues to escalate. At this point, even if the threat does retreat, they’ll follow and may sting even when 100m from the hive, but they’ll certainly head-butt for some distance.
Occasionally a hive will turn nasty, primarily because the queen’s genetics are “bad” – this often happens because the bee strain is hybridised with another strain. One nasty hive I had decided I was the enemy on the day I had a short-sleeved tee shirt under my bee jacket, so I got about 20 stings on my arms (for full protection you need 2 layers).
All of the above behaviours are caused by completely automatic responses to the alarm pheromone with no recognition of the fact that stinging the target will result in their death. In fact, when the sting is ripped out, it’s accompanied by a ganglion of nerve tissue which controls the continued pumping of venom into the recipient which indicates that they have actually evolved to perform this post-mortem attack on anything that threatens the colony, i.e. their death is part of the Great Bee Plan.
TL;DR – they don’t care – it’s all controlled by chemical messages.
I think they do. I’ve done some risky things to bees in a bee hive and not been stung. I’ve watched bees warn me. I’ve watched them crawl around trying to escape a threatening situation. They behave very much like I would expect an animal to behave as though it knew the stakes were ultimately high.
But when the danger pheromones hit, all bets are off.
I wouldn’t try any comparative tests with wasps in a wasp nest.
Actually this doesn’t happen [with all animals](https://blogs.unimelb.edu.au/sciencecommunication/2017/09/04/bee-careful/). Our and some other animals skin happens to be just about right for the barb to get stuck. I’ve also read that bees can remove themselves without perishing if given enough time (they spin and slowly get the barbs out) but our usual response is to brush them away so they don’t get the chance to do this.
Given it doesn’t happen with all animals, bees probably don’t expect it. But they probably encounter animals where their stinger won’t get stuck more often than they encounter humans and other animals where it does get stuck. They probably have to defend from other animals more often than humans.
Additional question: in theory, could a domesticated bee undergo a procedure to remove its stinger without harming it?
Wait by “smaller animals” do you mean smaller than bees themselves? Even stinging a small mouse would kill the bee. The problem is the stinger’s barb right? A smaller insect might not cause the stinger to rip out.
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I read that it’s only really Honey Bee’s that this happens to as other Bee’s have smooth stingers that don’t get stuck, while Honey Bee’s have barbed stingers.
I would say that they do not expect to die, no. Their stingers normally do not get stuck, but humans and other mammals have thick and rubbery skin that makes it too difficult for them to free themselves. Others are pointing out that pheromones and simple brains make them react without any sense of self-preservation, but they would see the death of any drone (including themselves) as a loss for the colony.
Yea, I think the soldier bees have accepted they might die in battle.
They literally have this condition where they’re basically like a dog that just starts humping the air. They’ll continue to sting over and over until detaching their stringers in many cases. It’s rarely just one and done. And some nevertheless survive, some just don’t get a good stick.
What’s more is muscles detach with the stringer to keep pumping venom into the enemy when the stringer does detach.
Here’s a protip, if you get stung somewhere, you should flee the area, the nest is very likely to be near and the attack signal has likely gone out. So, run.
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