Pardon me if this has been discussed before, but…
When I was young, I always heard that bumble bees have one good sting (b/c their stinger comes off) and they die soon afterward. I can’t imagine this being true because why would _______(God, nature, buddah, etc) create a defense mechanism that is also the death of you.
Wasp and honey bees would probably give their life to protect the hive, but you rarely see more than one bumble bee at a time.
Yep, it’s true for some bees, but not all. Wasps (I think) can sting multiple times. I don’t recall which types of bees lose their stingers.
It depends on whether the stinger has a barb/hook or not.
The reason? It has worked out well for them in an evolutionary sense.
For insects like bees, ants, etc., the survival of the hive/colony is more important than an individual.
Wasps can sting you repeatedly, whereas bees (including, I think, bumble bees) have barbed stingers that get ripped out of their bodies together with the venom glands.
According to this site, Bumble Bees differ from Honey Bees in that they do not have barbed stingers and can sting multiple times. (Look at the last paragraph in HABITS, just before the section on CONTROL.
Bumble Bee
Other sites mentioned that there are up to 30 species of Bumble Bee in the U.S., alone, so I suppose it is possible that some species may have barbs. (That was not my memory, however.)
I should have noted that that site is a sales site and attempts to execute a “shopping” program when you open it. Simply click “cancel” and the page can still be displayed.
There are solitary bees, but bumblebees are not among them. They are social insects who often their nests underground in deserted rodent dens. In addition, there exist several species of stingless bee. I believe some are native to Mexico. (Even among honeybees, drones are stingless.)
Out of curiousity in what manner are they “social” without the queen/worker/drone caste system seen in honeybees etc. Is it simply that they share living space or do they differentiate and/or cooperate on common tasks?
Just as a side note, there are many defense mechanisms that only work after the individual is dead. For example, a number of animals are toxic when eaten. It doesn’t benefit that individual, but the predator is less likely to eat the next butterfly, or whatever, of that type that it runs across. And animals living in the same general area are more likely to share genes.
all good points, thank you very much. The only question i have now is, does the sting=losing stinger contribute to the death of the insect or just leave it defenseless?
The sting and venom glands are ripped out of the body, leaving the bee ‘hors du combat’.
Yup. Big chunk of flesh being ripped out = instant gruesome death.
As an added insight to this topic, it’s been shown that, due to the specifics of honeybee reproduction, a worker bee is genetically more related to her sisters than she would be to her own children. Therefore, evolutionarily, it makes more sense to devote her life to defending the hive than to reproducing. For more details, see (I think) The Selfish Gene.
From the Encyclopedia Britannica
I just saw in the news here in the DC area a colony of Africanized “killer” bees attacked a farmer and his goat. The goat died and the man looked pretty awful… those bees are very aggresive, they need to go to ione of those conflict resolution classes.
As for living arrangements, I believe it’s like a dorm or something like that.
Remember: honeybees, including the Africanized variety, are not bumblebees. Honeybees are of the genus Apis, while bumblebees are of the geunus Bomba.
Here is a description of Africanized honeybees, if anyone is interested:
Behavior Characteristics of the Africanized Bees, Apis mellifera scutellata
That’s true, but with bees, only the queen reproduces. So while this defence mechanism kills a worker bee, it doesn’t hurt the ability of the hive to reproduce.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Smeghead *
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Richard Dawkins is (or was) a professor at Oxford the last I heard. His books about evolution and science include The Selfish Gene, The Extended Phenotype, The Blind Watchmaker, River Out of Eden, Climbing Mount Improbable and Unweaving the Rainbow.
Unfortunately, his books don’t sell well with the Danielle Steele crowd. Even so, they are worth reading. He should collaborate with Michael Crichton on a book. I’d see the movie.
Second the reccomendation on Dawkins. The 3/4 relatedness explanation is indeed in “The Selfish Gene”. The endnotes to the new edition also describe naked mole rats which were unknown at the time of the original publication, and are interesting because they form social colonies like ants or bees with a breeding queen and a lot of non-breeding workers. And they certainly aren’t haplodiploid (the fancy word for the 3/4 relatedness thing). Also, the relevance of 3/4 relatedness to hive behaviour can be questioned because the queens among hive insects generally mate with several males, and a given pair of sister worker ants or bees may not be 3/4 related because they might have different fathers.
It’s still an interesting fact though. As Dawkins says, the concept of 3/4 relatedness is easy enough that everybody can get it, but complicated enough that one is pleased with oneself for understanding it, and anxious to pass it on to others. So, in case you’re curious, I feel compelled to do just that:
Certain hymonoptera like ants and bees have an interesting form of sex determination. The queen, who generally mates at one time in her life and stores sperm from the mating, may lay either fertilized or unfertilized eggs. The unfertilized ones hatch into males, the fertilized ones into females. The unfertilized eggs contain only a single set of chromosomes contributed by the mother - the male has no father. This means that all sperms from a given male are genetically identical. So two sisters will have exactly the same set of chromosomes from their father, and share fifty percent of their mothers. They are 3/4 related, and thus more closely related to each other than they would be to their own offspring (1/2).
I find this hard to believe, considering that worker honeybees don’t reproduce. They have no children to compare to their sisters.
quoth yabob:
The unfertilized [eggs] hatch into males, the fertilized ones into females. The unfertilized eggs contain only a single set of chromosomes contributed by the mother - the male has no father. This means that all sperms from a given male are genetically identical. So two sisters will have exactly the same set of chromosomes from their father, and share fifty percent of their mothers. They are 3/4 related, and thus more closely related to each other than they would be to their own offspring (1/2).
is this true? really? how does a female asexually produce males? what is the difference between the bees and higher level creatures that allows them to do this?
Yes. I just checked my reference in Dawkin’s “The Selfish Gene”. And you will get plenty of material if you look up “haplodiploid” in your favorite search engine. For instance:
http://www.wisc.edu/ansci_repro/875material/875%20project%20web%20page/Zeki_Beyhan/zeki_final.html
Good section a little ways down the page entitled “Sex Determination in Honey Bee, Apis Mellifera”. Quote:
BTW, I referred to haplodiploid as the technical term for the 3/4 relatedness thing. A bit unaccurate - it’s the technical term for this type of sex determination, which has the 3/4 relatedness as its consequence.
You might look up stuff on naked mole rats, too, while you’re at it. Possibly not while eating lunch. Ugly looking little critters, but they did cause quite a stir when they were discovered because they behave like social insects.