# Can a bumblebee sting?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-bumblebee-sting/353423
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [April 20, 2006, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-bumblebee-sting/353423 "2006-04-20T03:56:13Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2006, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-bumblebee-sting/353423/1 "2006-04-20T03:56:13Z")
This question came up on a recent trip to Savannah. A friend and I sat on a bench in one of the parks down by the Savannah River. She said she thought that the hovering bumblebee could sting and I disagreed, but with some uncertainty. With _one_ bumblebee I was willing to risk it. When the second one came along, I decided to move along.
What’s the straight dope?
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### Author:  [@Sattua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sattua)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2006, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-bumblebee-sting/353423/2 "2006-04-20T04:00:16Z")
According to Wikipedia’s article on them,
> [@](#):
>
> Queen and worker bumblebees can sting. Their sting is not barbed like that of the honeybee, so they can sting more than once.
They kind of freak me out, too. They’re so big. And so noisy. They are slow, though, and seem good-natured…
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### Author:  [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2006, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-bumblebee-sting/353423/3 "2006-04-20T04:00:53Z")
Yes, they can. Like (non-Africanized) honeybees, they tend to sting only when provoked or threatened. Unlike them, however, the bumblebee can sting repeatedly–its stinger is not barbed and does not remain embedded in the flesh of its target.
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### Author:  [@Enola\_Straight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enola_Straight)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2006, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-bumblebee-sting/353423/4 "2006-04-20T04:23:08Z")
Yes.
One stung me in the forehead.
It hurt.
Then the stung area went numb.
I smacked the bee like this: :smack:
then stomped it. :mad:
Bee boo-boo. :dubious:
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### Author:  [@WolfpackJeep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WolfpackJeep)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2006, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-bumblebee-sting/353423/5 "2006-04-20T04:48:09Z")
And they have prickly little legs, so they can get tangled in your hair or clothes very easily. Getting stuck angers them, so they keep stinging until you remove the item of clothing, hurl it to the floor, and stomp on it repeatedly.
(This is based on personal experience.)
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### Author:  [@Tikki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tikki)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2006, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-bumblebee-sting/353423/6 "2006-04-20T04:57:52Z")
I tend to think of stinging as a last resort though, be it a bumble or honey. I have gently relocated many a bee from inside a building to the outside using only my bare hands. I have _never_ been stung. The only time I regretted using this technique is when I tried it on a hornet. Turns out that with them, all bets are off.
Bees are really cool critters. I love watching them close up every chance I get.
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### Author:  [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2006, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-bumblebee-sting/353423/7 "2006-04-20T04:59:01Z")
As a kid, I was convinced they couldn’t sting. As a result, I would not hesitate to handle them or such things. They must not be very agressive, because I’ve never been stung.
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### Author:  [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2006, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-bumblebee-sting/353423/8 "2006-04-20T05:09:31Z")
Male bees, or drones, can’t sting, though. For most species, you will usually encounter a female worker with a sting. However, if you are buzzed by a huge black bee which is shiny, rather than hairy, it might be a carpenter bee rather than a bumblebee, and is likely to be a male, and stingless. Carpenter bees are solitary rather than building social nests, and the males guard territories.
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### Author:  [@WolfpackJeep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WolfpackJeep)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2006, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-bumblebee-sting/353423/9 "2006-04-20T05:38:32Z")
If you’ve ever seen a kid “bee flying,” the bee on the end of the string was most likely a carpenter bee. As **yabob** said, you’re most likely to encounter males poking around the woodwork of a house or deck. They’re rather calm.
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### Author:  [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2006, 5:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-bumblebee-sting/353423/10 "2006-04-20T05:48:35Z")
> [@Jeep's Phoenix](#):
>
> And they have prickly little legs, so they can get tangled in your hair or clothes very easily.
> [@Jeep's Phoenix](#):
>
> Getting stuck angers them, so they keep stinging until you remove the item of clothing, hurl it to the floor, and stomp on it repeatedly.
Yep, to both. I got zapped by bumbles a couple times in my life. I remember both vividly.
The first time I was walking into Shopko store with a friend of mine. Inside the store I felt a strange sensation on my head. One flew into my hair and got stuck. It stung the very top of my head until I was able to brush it out. As it flew away deeper into the store my friend just stood there with this deer-in-headlights gawk and gasped “Holy shit. Did you see the size of that thing”. Yeah, Rob. It just stung me about 8 times. Thanks for all your help!:rolleyes:
About a month later I was riding my motorcycle through the country side when one flew into the collar area of my leather jacket and got stuck. It stung me on the neck about three times until I could get stopped and open my jacket up so it could fly out. My neck swelled so like I had a life preserver on!
I noticed that their stings aren’t as hot & burny feeling as wasps & hornets are, but YMMV.
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### Author:  [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2006, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-bumblebee-sting/353423/11 "2006-04-20T16:08:50Z")
I’ll just throw in that while technically incorrect, I have heard “bumblebee” colloquially used to include carpenter bees.
[http://www.uky.edu/Ag/Entomology/entfacts/struct/ef611.htm](http://www.uky.edu/Ag/Entomology/entfacts/struct/ef611.htm)
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### Author:  [@Maastricht](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maastricht)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2006, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-bumblebee-sting/353423/12 "2006-04-20T16:46:23Z")
> [@Zoe](#):
>
> … the hovering bumblebee …
Are you sure it was a bumblebee? Some bee-like insects can hover, i.e. they can fly and remain in one place in the air, like a helicopter. Bumblebee’s can’t hover.
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### Author:  [@The\_Chao\_Goes\_Mu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Chao_Goes_Mu)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2006, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-bumblebee-sting/353423/13 "2006-04-20T16:47:06Z")
Bumble bees, although, equipped with stingers, don’t seem to be as aggressive as other bees.
I’m allergic to bees so when I see one, I usually remove myself from the vicinity until it’s gone. Other bees will sometimes follow relentlessly. Bumble bees seem to be frightened by the movements of a lumbering human. When I’m watering my flowers, I can move freely among them with bumble bees just going about their business, usually trying to avoid me. In all the stingings I’ve suffered as a youth (which led to my now deadly allergy) I never once was brutally attacked by a bumble bee.
They are intimidating with their damn mammoth size though! :::shudder:::
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### Author:  [@Maastricht](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maastricht)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2006, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-bumblebee-sting/353423/14 "2006-04-20T17:12:00Z")
Bumblebee’s are the teddybears of the insect world. I love them!
From the big shiny purposeful new queens who first appear in March, to the tired last-generation workerbee who plops down on my terrace in September, exhaustedly panting with her abdomen, and usually carrying five or so mites because the hygiene in the nest has lapsed.
Fascinating and sweet little creatures.
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### Author:  [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2006, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-bumblebee-sting/353423/15 "2006-04-20T18:48:25Z")
> [@Q.E.D.](#):
>
> they tend to sting only when provoked or threatened
Like that one time on the A-Team at the end of an episode when a bumblebee landed on Face’s leg and he real quick-like grabbed it and held it in his bare hand and then grinned up at B.A. and Murdock and Hannibal like “see how cool I am” and then he was all like “AAAA” because the bee stung his hand and then they freeze-framed and rolled credits over his “AAAA”-ing expression?
That was _awesome._
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### Author:  [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2006, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-bumblebee-sting/353423/16 "2006-04-20T18:59:34Z")
> [@pkbites](#):
>
> . . .I was riding my motorcycle through the country side when one flew into the collar area of my leather jacket and got stuck.
I read a letter to the editor of a motorcycle mag once by a guy who kept a dead bee in his pocket. In case he got pulled over, he would show the bee to the cop to prove he had been unavoidably distracted. Once he actually did get pulled over, but the bee was pretty dessicated so the cop didn’t buy it.
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### Author:  [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2006, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-bumblebee-sting/353423/17 "2006-04-20T22:18:38Z")
After looking at **Earl’s** links, I’m thinking that the ones that I saw in Savannah were probably bumble bees and now I have retroactive fear. The fact that I wasn’t afraid then may have kept me from being stung.
The link was helpful in another way too. What I thought was a bumble bee outside my front porch is a carpenter bee. I had seen signs of his handy work before and he showed up a couple of days ago to see what damage he could do this year. I just had not connected the two in previous years.
> [@](#):
>
> **Maastricht** : Are you sure it was a bumblebee? Some bee-like insects can hover, i.e. they can fly and remain in one place in the air, like a helicopter. Bumblebee’s can’t hover.
You have a good point. The bumble bees certainly didn’t just hang in one place and that is one definition of _hover._ I think they would fall like rocks. But there is another definition of _hover_ which means to “to move to and fro near a place.” That is the sense in which I used it.
I will gladly live with bees for honey – the taste, it’s color and its scent is one of my favorite things. Since my question has been answered so thoroughly, I will close with a link to a poem for the Doper who likes bees so much:
[“The Lake Isle of Innisfree”](http://www.bartleby.com/103/44.html) by William Butler Yeats
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### Author:  [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)
#### Post date: [April 21, 2006, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-bumblebee-sting/353423/18 "2006-04-21T00:54:49Z")
Just want to post my thanks to everyone, I had what I thought was a bumblebee nest, but is in actuality a carpenter bee nest. Big, black bodied suckers that hover right in front of you. From Earl’s link
> [@](#):
>
> Male carpenter bees are quite aggressive, often hovering in front of people who are around the nests.
Oh yeah, that’s them!
> [@](#):
>
> The males are quite harmless, however, since they lack stingers.
Whew! I feel much better now about having the bees flying around, though the nest will still have to go, since they’re eating my garage.
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### Author:  [@Neurotik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Neurotik)
#### Post date: [April 21, 2006, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-bumblebee-sting/353423/19 "2006-04-21T01:28:11Z")
I watched two bumblebees mate the other day. They were flying around outside my office window, then one landed and the other climbed on top and started humping away. Then it looks like he finished up and they both flew away. Good times.
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### Author:  [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)
#### Post date: [April 21, 2006, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-bumblebee-sting/353423/20 "2006-04-21T01:48:35Z")
> [@Maastricht](#):
>
> Bumblebee’s are the teddybears of the insect world.
The evil vicious hurty teddy bears, maybe.
I got stung by a bumble bee once when I was a kid. It stung me through my jeans. I wasn’t doing anything to provoke it, either. I think it was just mad because of all the kids at the day camp who kept walking over the ground where they had their nest.
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