Have you ever wondered why bees sting? Actually not for any aggressive and hostile reason. Bees sting only when they feel the need to defend themselves; this is a defense mechanism rather than an offensive move.
Thus, they unwittingly sacrifice their lives trying to protect themselves from danger. To protect their hives, they can die like soldiers guarding land at the front. However, not every bee dies after stinging, and most of them die because of us.
Not every bee has evolved to be capable of stinging.
In most bee species, drones do not have the ability to sting. “Stingless bees” do exactly what their name suggests, that is, they don’t sting. But this is not due to the absence of the needle, but due to its ineffectiveness.
All species belonging to the “aculeata” group, which includes wasps, ants, honeybees, and wasps, have a sting. The bees that can sting us belong to this species.
The body of the honey bee is divided into layers, and the layer where the sting is located is connected with the other abdominal parts.
The body of a honey bee; divided into head, thorax and abdomen. Their abdomen is layered and the last part houses the needle. This part also contains the last part of the digestive system of the bee, as it is in the same place as the other abdominal parts.
Nerve nodes that push and retract the sting into the prey, protractor muscles, and a chamber that acts as a venom storage structure are also located in this region.
Unfortunately, the lower part of the abdomen of the bee that pierces its sting is torn.
A worker bee encountering a potential threat resorts to a defense mechanism, and the muscles accompanying the sting push the sting down, allowing it to enter the area. Sometimes they use their legs and abs to create enough thrust to pierce thick skin.
The bee that imports the venom tries to fly away, but the thick skin of creatures such as humans often does not allow it. The lower part of the bee’s abdomen is torn off and remains there with the sting.
To summarize; The death of bees is not caused by their structure, but by us.
So actually, it’s not because of the bees that they die after stinging. The thick skin of mammals like us causes the death of bees who want to protect themselves. Some species of bees with soft stings, or bees lucky enough to remove the sting without breaking it, can sting someone many times in their lifetime.
The rumor that “bees die when they sting someone” would be more accurate as “bees die when they sting a thick skin because it breaks down”.
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