![]() ![]() ![]() The stinger is actually a modified egg-laying tool that bees and wasps developed to easily lay their eggs into cells. The males, or drones, however, don’t have a stinger and therefore, won’t sting. ![]() It’s actually only the females, including the queen, who has a stinger. No, not all bumblebees are capable of stinging. I don’t know about you, but I have many memories as a child, searching my garden for bumblebees to study. Many of those who work with and around these bees will also state that they’ve never been stung. Their nests rarely cross our paths so they don’t have much reason for being aggressive.īumblebees are, in fact, quite intelligent, and some scientists were even able to teach them a ball game. There are more than 600 stingless bee species, however, whose stingers have been so reduced that they are also known as entirely stingless bees (Meliponini), with the majority of these located in Latin America, Australia, Africa, and Eastern and Southern Asia.Bumblebees prefer to nest on the ground, in the hidden corners of your yard, perhaps under your shed, or in an old rodent burrow. Generally speaking, most bee species don’t do much stinging – this is especially the case for most solitary bees, which make up around half of all known bee species.įemale solitary bees are fertile (compared to social bees with a lot of sterile worker bees), which means that stinging for them is quite a risky strategy and will only be used in highly dangerous situations. Do really all of them sting? Or is this a simple misconception held by a lot of people? What Kind of Bee Doesn’t Sting?īee stings are no fun. Not being able to pull out, the honey bee can get swatted by her victim, or she will pull so hard that the poison sac, and even part of her abdomen, will be pulled out of the body, only enabling her to fly off and die. Once she delivers a sting, the honeybee’s stinger is stuck, and so is the honey bee. They also have relatively elastic skin around the stinger, preventing them from easily pulling the barbed stingers out. Honey bees, on the other hand, have barbs on their stings. Having pulled the stinger out, the bumble bee is able to sting again and again. So a bumblebee can actually pull out the sting without detaching it. In fact, a bumblebee stings multiple times.Ĭontrary to a honeybee sting, the sting of a bumblebee has no barbs. Unlike honey bees, bumble bees do not die after delivering a sting. When stung in the face or anywhere in the head, or if you easily suffer from allergies, it is best to seek emergency medical services immediately after bumblebees sting you. This only happens in around one percent of cases, typically in adults who have been stung in the head or face. People with severe allergies may die within an hour after being stung, usually the result of an anaphylactic reaction or respiratory dysfunction. If you have allergies, though, bee stings can prove dangerous or even fatal (though rare). The allergic reaction and swelling can cause suffocation. As mentioned above, bee stings can cause allergic reactions and swelling. However, no matter which type of bee delivered the sting, a sting in the mouth or throat can be highly dangerous. Be careful when stung in the mouth or throatįor most people, reactions to a bumble bee sting on the hand or body disappear quickly. There could also be itching close to the sting. ![]() In particular, the acidic compound called melittin in their blood might activate your pain receptors.įor most people, this means that they see a local result on their skin, which might include painful swelling (caused by histamines) and redness. When a bumblebee stings, it injects venom into its victim.īumblebee venom, similar to wasp venom or honeybee venom, affects the blood vessels of your skin. Normally, when not agitated, the female bumblebee hides her sting inside the last abdominal segment. “No male bee of any species can sting, even honeybees, and bumblebees” Richard Comont, Bumblebee Conservation Trust But they are so good-natured that getting a female to sting you is actually a major undertaking. Only female bumble bees (queens and workers) have stingers, male bumblebees (drones) do not. These pollinators only sting when truly provoked. They do not form swarms like other bee types and attack. They will only sting if they feel threatened or their hive is in danger. Similar to most bees, bumblebees rarely sting, and they are quite peaceful insects. Yes, they do, but they do so very rarely. Now to the question: Do Bumble Bees Sting? ![]()
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