Why do bees sting even though they would die after?
In: Biology
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.
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