Why do bees sting even though they would die after?
In: Biology
They hive is all that matters. Individuals are expendable. Bee defends hive: mission accomplished.
The bee doesn’t know that.
Bees only die from getting their stinger stuck in a large animal’s skin. Most of what they sting isn’t thick-skinned like us, and they survive it just fine.
In fact, most bees survive stinging humans just fine. Only 0.04% of all bee species die stinging humans. 99%+ can sting and sting and sting to their heart’s content.
All bees are sisters or brothers with the same genes – all are clones. So, one bee sacrificing itself to save at least one other (and the hive has 20K – 80K) is a good deal.
Same reason soldiers go into battle even though they may die. Worker bees have a job, protect the hive, dying is a possible result of that. Unlike humans though bees have a tiny little brain that can’t grasp concepts such as true threat assessment and risk/reward, so they just sting whenever their little neurons sense a danger. The bee is probably not even aware that it will kill them to do so, they don’t have such complex thoughts like we do.
Bees with stingers can’t reproduce on their own anyway, gathering nutrients for and protecting their hive is their only biological goal.
Because it’s better for the whole hive (if they’re social bees). Worker bees don’t reproduce, only the queen does. While it’s not ideal for the hive to lose a worker, if that hive stops a predator it’s worth it. Think of workers like cells in your body. Your skin cells die in order to preserve the “colony” that is the rest of you, which are all, ultimately, in service of your reproductive cells. Since the skin cells and reproductive cells share genes, if your reproductive cells reproduce, then in a way your skin cells do, too. Individual [social] bees are in service of the colony, and when the queen creates new queens and drones, the genes of the whole hive are spread.
Solitary bees are a lot more reluctant to sting, though, since they are the ones reproducing and no one will spread their genes other than themselves. They are far less aggressive and tend to rely on warnings and their coloration to make things too afraid to mess with them. That fear, though, relies on them being sometimes willing to sting and die, in order to reinforce that the buzzy black and yellow thing is not to be trifled with. The solitary bee that dies doesn’t get to reproduce (or reproduce *again*) but *similar* genes from its siblings and cousins and the rest of its species still get to spread their genes. So it’s close enough to a win.
Most don’t, only a few species do. Take killer bees, for example: they are so dangerous because of their ability to swarm and sting until whatever they want dead is dead. The bees that do die, die from losing their stinger. Those species of bee only lose it on thick skinned creatures, but they don’t usually have to sting such creatures, so there’s been no evolutionary need.
Bees can sting other insects perfectly fine, it’s only when they sting things with thick layers of skin like a mammal does it kill them.
It’s easier to view bees hives (or ant colonies) as a single organism. Bees sting because the hive needs to defend itself / attack.
It’s different from humans where you look at the benefit to the individual. The individual here is really the hive.
Don’t think of the bee as the organism. Think of the hive as the organism. The hive is willing to lose one of its bees to discourage animals from getting close to it, just like some lizards drop their tails if a predator is grabbing them by the tail.
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