Conquer Club

Just a wee question for you all. I find it rather interesting that bees sting people in self defense, then they die because they stung someone.... Seems a wee bit pointless doesn't it.

Discuss - expect to read a lot about sacrifice for the good of the hive etc. Any other thoughts on this most interesting conundrum?

ok I will bite

its protecting the hive and its ongoing survival - it does not defend itself but the colony

Honeybee hordes use two weapons - heat and carbon dioxide - to kill their natural enemies, giant hornets.

Japanese honeybees form "bee balls" - mobbing and smothering the predators.

This has previously been referred to as "heat-balling", but a study has now shown that carbon dioxide also plays a role in its lethal effectiveness.

In the journal Naturwissenschaften, the scientists describe how hornets are killed within 10 minutes when they are trapped inside a ball of bees.

Japanese giant hornets, which can be up to 5cm long, are voracious predators that can devastate bees' nests and consume their larvae.

But, if the bees spot their attacker in time, they mount a powerful defence in the form of a bee ball. This study found that the heat inside the bee ball alone was not enough to reliably kill the hornets.
Giant hornet
Giant hornets were taped to temperature and gas probes

"They can survive for 10 minutes at a temperature up to 47C, and the temperature inside the bee balls does not rise higher than 46C," said Fumio Sakamoto, a researcher from Kyoto Gakuen University in Japan, and one of the authors of the study.

His team recreated experimental bee balls and took direct measurements from inside them.

They anaesthetised giant hornets and fixed them to the tip either of a thermometer probe, or the inlet of a gas detector.

Once the hornets recovered from their anaesthesia, the probes were touched to the bees' nest.

"The bee ball formed (around the hornet) immediately," said Dr Sakamoto.

After 10 minutes the bees were packed solidly enough around the probe to be removed from the nest in a distinct ball.

As the temperature inside the ball increased to more than 45C, the carbon dioxide level also rose sharply.

In a parallel experiment, the scientists found that in an atmosphere relatively high in carbon dioxide, the temperature at which hornets could survive for 10 minutes was lowered.

"So we concluded that carbon dioxide produced inside the bee ball by the honeybees is a major factor, together with temperature, involved in the bees' defence."
Bees mobbing a hornet
The bee ball formed as a bump on the bottom of the nest

Dr Sakamoto is not sure, at this point, whether the bees were effectively "gassing" the hornets, or simply depriving them of oxygen.

"Either way, the carbon dioxide increase and/or the oxygen decrease lowered the temperature that was lethal to the hornets, " he told BBC News.

"We are going to do the additional experiments about this point using mixed air of various oxygen and carbon dioxide (concentrations)."

The mob of bees also appeared to operate in "two phases".

"The hornet may be killed during the first 0-5 minute period, in which the highest level of heat production and carbon dioxide emissions take place," said Dr Sakamoto.

This might suggest that the bees are aware of what physiological state the hornet is in.

Dr Sakamoto said: "The latter 5-10 min period may be free running to ensure their victim's death."

Poor bees Imagine we would see less wars if attacking someone else does damage to ourselves.

Are bees small-time suicide stingers?

Probably all terrorists..

They are freedom fighters.... Not terry wrists.

I heard the the bee population is declining....great now who am I going to find to sting me and walk all over my sandwiches!

I hate bees.

I believe it was Homer Simpson who said, "Or what? You'll release the dogs? Or the bees? Or the dogs with bees in their mouths, and when they bark they shoot bees at you?"

Perish the though of bee-shooting dogs.

BoganGod wrote:They are freedom fighters.... Not terry wrists.

And if firefighters fight fire, then we all know what the bees' agenda is... [play]ominous music[/play]

In Japan there is a giant hornet. Its reputed to have one of the worst stings on the planet. Maybe the worst. It eats honey, and kills honeybees to get at it. Japanese honeybees envelop one the second they see it. Any bee close, jumps on top, and typically the hornet takes a few with it.

European honeybees have no foes quite as menacing. They still fight to the death, but they do not envelop it at first site. It goes back to its nest and brings back 30 of its sisters. Those thirty hornets, will then kill 30000 honeybees. Its massive mandibles chop them right in half, one by one. To be honest, its actually hard to watch. Those bees fight for their lives. They never stop, but they simply dont know what to do. They have been programmed for millions of years, and while very complex, are still limited in their complexity.

There actions are also not bravery, but more instinct. They do tend to only use that sting as a last resort, and its why honeybees(european) are fairly easy to get along with. Away from the nest, they are as dangerous as a fly typically, unless you step on it, or really trap it.

The african ones are a different story. They sting everything. It has led to their success, and downfall. They are expanding, and there is no real stopping them, however, the wild ones that cause trouble, are hunted down, and killed. The slightly less aggressive ones, are left alive more often. The ones that are workable are worked, and the overly aggressive ones are destroyed.

We are essentially, albeit slowly reprogramming africanized honeybees.

I as a kid always assumed that some guy had a briefcase of the bees, and they somehow escaped a failsafe environment. No. They took the bees from africa to make honey in south america, where the heat was too much for the european bees, hoping...that docility would be the dominant trait, or that somehow they would merge and average out. Duh, which do you think is the dominant trait?

There is then the cape bee. This one is the spy of the insect world. It pretends to be a bee. It then pretends to be a queen. It then gets treated like a queen, makes offspring, and those offspring get treated like queens too. The hive starts to fall apart. The other bees blame the real queen, whos only real flaw is letting her kids hatch a few days later than the cape bees. They kill her, and then, the only kids born, are the cape bees, and the nest eventually just dies. It works on european honeybees, and african honeybees, but as dangerous as the african honeybees seem to us...the cape bee is far more dangerous, because they would kill so many honeybees, and not fertilize the crops, that its impossible to measure the magnitude of destruction.

The european bees have had some struggles in the last few years too. Nearly half, or more than half in areas have died. Many factors are suspected, including genetics, herbicides, funguses, viral strains from australia...which seem to be present in nearly every failed colony, and a combination of all of these factors at once. Luckily, and I use the term loosely, the africanized bees are fairly immune to the colony collapse disorder...but that comes at an obvious price. Lots of more stings.

I hate bees...and by hate, I mean I fear them, but more I hate yellowjackets. Honeybees so rarely sting outside of the nest, that its unlikely a normal person will ever get nailed by a european honeybee. Yellowjackets, and other hornets however can sting and bite with impunity, and are typically what will get you.

I hate them, so I enjoy learning about them, which has without a doubt helped me stay my fear, which is admittedly quite profound, and without a doubt on a basic, chemical level. I have been able to work through it, but it really takes serious determination.

That was a great post AAFitz. Thanks for writing that out, it was an interesting read.

Like TGD, my first thought was of the bee-shooting dogs, but my second was:


NO NOT THE BEES

wheres jrock when we need him?

Only a couple of bee specimens actually die after stinging you. Others can just keep stinging and stinging.

our bees are not that bad, it's those pesky wasp you've got to look out for, bastards.

pimpdave wrote:That was a great post AAFitz. Thanks for writing that out, it was an interesting read.

Like TGD, my first thought was of the bee-shooting dogs, but my second was:


NO NOT THE BEES

NOOOO!!!

Nice write-up, Fitz.

Just to add:
Most domestic bees in South America, Central America and Mexico are killer bees. They still produce honey and can be handled with special precautions and methods. I've worked on "Killer" colonys...the temperment is amazing.

With the decline of the global bee population, you better cultivate an apreciation unless you like spending $5.00 for an orange, and like a lot of rice, wheat, and corn.

We always seem to put human emotions and desires on the actions of animals and insects.
Bees are hardwired insects, that run on pure instinct. Bees sting in defence of it's hive, rarely in any other circumstance.

The domestic honeybee is a huge keystone in our quality of life. Protect them as much as possible.

I've been handling bees all my life, they have to be the most complex and interesting lifeform on this planet. When I get stung, it's always my own fault.

Besides the venom does wonders for arthritis, and a bevy of other neurological ailments.
Worst case of venom intoxication I ever had was when doing a truck spill clean up and I lost count at around 100. Quite the natural high though....

John Russell (Johnny Rockets)
The John Russell Honey Company
honeyb.ca

Kin selection, in case nobody has already said it.

Skittles! wrote:Only a couple of bee specimens actually die after stinging you. Others can just keep stinging and stinging.

are they worker bees, or just the alpha models?
- Bee spitting dogs, perish the thought. Further proof that there is nothing more frightening than the imagination of homer j simpson.
- Bees on sandwiches, am lucky to say haven't had that problem as yet
- A Fitz and Scarlet, thank you for the educational postings, good to learn something in monkey business for once.
- Nice pic pimpdave
- BigBallin - so bees have agendas.... Do they also take minutes at meetings? Call each other honey?

Not I, said the fly.

Wasn't me, said the bee.

As in all stinging wasps, hornets can sting multiple times; they do not die after stinging a human as is typical for a worker honey bee, as a hornet's sting is not barbed (the honey bee stinger has evolved for defending the nest against vertebrates/mammals). They can also bite and sting at the same time.

Hornets, like many social wasps, can mobilize the entire nest to sting in defense, which is highly dangerous to humans. The hornet alarm pheromone is used to raise alarm of nest attack and to identify prey, such as bees. It is not advisable to kill a hornet anywhere near a nest, as the distress signal can trigger the entire nest to attack. Materials that come in contact with pheromone, such as clothes, skin, dead prey, or hornets, must be removed from the vicinity of the hornets nest. Perfumes and other volatile chemicals can be falsely identified as pheromone by the hornets and trigger an attack.

A honey bee that is away from the hive foraging for nectar or pollen will rarely sting, except when stepped on or roughly handled. 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 .

Although it is widely believed that a worker honey bee can sting only once, this is a partial misconception: although the sting 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.. The bee's sting is speculated to have evolved for inter-bee combat between members of different hives, and the barbs serve to improve penetration of the chitinous plates of another insect's exoskeleton. Honey bees are the only Hymenoptera with a strongly barbed sting, though yellowjackets and some other wasps have small barbs.The larger drone bees do not have stings.The queen bee has a smooth sting and can, if need be, sting skin-bearing creatures multiple times, but the queen does not leave the hive under normal conditions. Her sting is not for defense of the hive; she only uses it for dispatching rival queens.

Yellowjackets have a lance-like stinger with small barbs and typically sting repeatedly, though occasionally the sting becomes lodged and pulls free of the wasp's body. It is bold and aggressive, and if provoked, it can sting repeatedly and painfully. It will mark aggressors, and will pursue them if provoked.

Queen and worker bumblebees can sting, but unlike a honey bee's, a bumblebee's stinger lacks barbs, so they can sting more than once. Bumblebee species are normally non-aggressive, but will sting in defense of their nest, or if harmed. Female cuckoo bumblebees will aggressively attack host colony members, and sting the host queen, but will ignore other animals (including humans) unless disturbed.

I liked AAFitz's much more, but that one above was good. But I really miss the spaces in between the paragraphs...

Just an FYI:

Although it is widely believed that a worker honey bee can sting only once, this is a partial misconception: although the sting 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... The bee's sting is speculated to have evolved for inter-bee combat between members of different hives, and the barbs serve to improve penetration of the chitinous plates of another insect's exoskeleton.

True, Bees evolved stingers to defend the colony from all enemies, including rival robbing bees. The stinger and the venom sac will tear out and be left behind, ( the venom sac still pulsating to keep injecting...) but this is more-so because there is a pheromone tag excreted as well that lets other defenders know where the enemy is. So if you are stung in one spot, other bees will focus on that "scent" and you will then be a beacon for much more pain. This enables the defending bees to drive away larger predators like bears, skunks and man.

The queen bee has a smooth sting and can, if need be, sting skin-bearing creatures multiple times, but the queen does not leave the hive under normal conditions.
Being sting by a queen is very rare, I've only heard of it when someone was physically handling one and crushed her. The queen does leave the hive in a swarming situation or for mating flights early in her life, but only a few times early in her life.

Her sting is not for defense of the hive; she only uses it for dispatching rival queens. Very true.

As well, the term Queen is very misleading. More like a slave figure, she does not do much else but be prodded and fed sheparded into empty comb to lay up to 1000 eggs per day. She does not make any decisions on how the hive progresses and does not "lead" her subjects.
The moment she starts to fail in her duties she's superseded, upon the hatching of a new queen she'll be abandoned and ignored and will starve out and die.

JRock

DAZMCFC wrote:our bees are not that bad, it's those pesky wasp you've got to look out for, bastards.

Wrongo... Don't know about you but in the summer we get fucking flying ants.... GOD they're annoying, they're EVERYWHERE!!!

Ronaldinho wrote:

DAZMCFC wrote:our bees are not that bad, it's those pesky wasp you've got to look out for, bastards.

Wrongo... Don't know about you but in the summer we get fucking flying ants.... GOD they're annoying, they're EVERYWHERE!!!

we had a nest under the patio. they don't annoy or scare me as much as the wasp.

Wasps sux! Got stung pretty bad by a nest of paper wasps when I was a kid. One of my "friends" thought it would be real funny to hit a nest out of a tree, then run like hell. Was sad that he hit in my direction... Learnt a lot from that experience, have never trusted a carrot top with AD/HD since.

NOT THE BEES lol