# When insecivores catch bees, do they get stung? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 20, 2016, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-insecivores-catch-bees-do-they-get-stung/766450 "2016-09-20T17:14:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![CC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f1d935/32.png) [@CC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CC)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2016, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-insecivores-catch-bees-do-they-get-stung/766450/1 "2016-09-20T17:14:07Z")
Birds, mainly - when they’re flying around nabbing tiny flying critters, don’t they occasionally get a bee or a wasp? And don’t they get stung? Bats, I presume, don’t run into this problem since I think most bees and wasps are snug in bed at night. How do birds avoid being stung by insects? ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2016, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-insecivores-catch-bees-do-they-get-stung/766450/2 "2016-09-20T17:50:41Z")
They can get stung, and many birds avoid bees and wasps for exactly this reason. There is also a type of bird called a bee-eater which, as its name implies, doesn’t avoid eating bees at all, and in fact hunts them regularly. Here’s what wikipedia has to say about them: > [@](#): > > Insects with poisonous stings are first smacked on the branch, then, with the eyes closed, rubbed to discharge the venom. This behaviour is innate, as demonstrated by a juvenile bird in captivity, which performed the task when first presented with wild bees. This bird was stung on the first five tries, but by ten bees, it was as adept at handling bees as adult birds. Full article here: > **[Bee-eater](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bee-eater)** > > The bee-eaters are a group of birds in the family Meropidae, containing three genera and thirty species. Most species are found in Africa and Asia, with a few in southern Europe, Australia, and New Guinea. They are characterised by richly coloured plumage, slender bodies, and usually elongated central tail feathers. All have long down-turned bills and medium to long wings, which may be pointed or round. Male and female plumages are usually similar. > As their name suggests, bee-eaters predomina... ETA: While looking up a cite for the bee-eaters, I also discovered that skunks eat bees. They scratch at the entrance to the hive and then swat the bees to stun them (so they won’t sting) as they come out. ---
**Author:** ![Asympotically\_fat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e47c2d/32.png) [@Asympotically\_fat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asympotically_fat)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2016, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-insecivores-catch-bees-do-they-get-stung/766450/3 "2016-09-20T17:54:07Z")
The point of the stinger and the markings of a bee/wasp is to make potential predators avoid eating them. Of course there are predators that specialize in eating bees/wasps and they will have strategies for dealing with the stinger: bee-eater for example rubs off the stinger of a bee or wasp on a hard surface before eating its prey, though very inexperienced birds do sometimes get stung. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2016, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-insecivores-catch-bees-do-they-get-stung/766450/4 "2016-09-20T17:56:33Z")
There’s also various flies and other non-stinging critters who have bee/wasp-like markings so they _won’t_ get eaten. So the stinger (and yellow/black warning pattern) must be a deterrent to at least some insectivores. ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2016, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-insecivores-catch-bees-do-they-get-stung/766450/5 "2016-09-20T18:30:09Z")
nm. I ws looking up Meropidae, and got beat out. The old world bee-eaters are astonishingly beautiful birds. ---
**Author:** ![CC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f1d935/32.png) [@CC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CC)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2016, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-insecivores-catch-bees-do-they-get-stung/766450/6 "2016-09-20T19:51:03Z")
So no birds catch and swallow bees by mistake? ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2016, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-insecivores-catch-bees-do-they-get-stung/766450/7 "2016-09-20T20:18:26Z")
A related anecdote: When I was a teenager, my sister had a cat, who loved to spend her summer days out on the screened-in back porch. While out there, she’d hunt (and eat) bugs that made their way into the porch. One summer, we had issues with some sort of stinging insect (yellowjackets, IIRC) showing up in the porch. One morning, I was watching TV, and the cat was the porch, when I heard her howling. I opened the door to the porch, and the cat shot inside. She sat down, licked herself for a few seconds, then howled and jumped into the air. She did that four or five more times, then eventually calmed down, and hid behind the couch for a few hours. We quickly concluded that she’d caught, and swallowed, one of the yellowjackets, which then stung her (in the esophagus or stomach) several times, before it perished. I don’t think she ever went after a yellowjacket again. ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2016, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-insecivores-catch-bees-do-they-get-stung/766450/8 "2016-09-20T20:46:49Z")
> [@CC](#): > > So no birds catch and swallow bees by mistake? I erecall seeing decades ago a film of a frog that caught bee, and stuck his tongue back out with a very disappointed expression on his face. ---
**Author:** ![mmmiiikkkeee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/edb3f5/32.png) [@mmmiiikkkeee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mmmiiikkkeee)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2016, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-insecivores-catch-bees-do-they-get-stung/766450/9 "2016-09-21T01:56:43Z")
A few years ago I raised 2 dozen chickens; the modern meat variety known for having quite dulled instincts as opposed to many of the older breeds. Despite that breed being pretty slow foraging-for-natural-food-wise, on one occasion I delightedly watched one of them track a bald-faced hornet (the big black and white ones) flying towards it for a few seconds, snatch it out of the air, and gulp it down. Went right back to pecking in the grass no problem. Stinging insects can’t sting if their body gets instantly crushed by a beak or a hand. If you grab them non-leathaly and let them wriggle their abdomens around then you have trouble. But most insectivores aren’t very gentle or delicate when they grab an insect and it’s usually over for the bug in a fraction of a second. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2016, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-insecivores-catch-bees-do-they-get-stung/766450/10 "2016-09-21T02:03:07Z")
> [@CC](#): > > So no birds catch and swallow bees by mistake? They do. But if they get stung they either stop trying to catch bees, or learn to handle them so they don’t get stung. Besides Bee-eaters, other birds sometimes eat bees, including Summer Tanagers, Kingbirds, Thrushes, Mockingbirds, and others. [Here’s a bee-eater killing and eating a bee after catching it.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWLnbd_y2h0) The bee can’t sting the bird’s bill, so as long as it kills the bee before swallowing it there’s no problem. ---
**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2016, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-insecivores-catch-bees-do-they-get-stung/766450/11 "2016-09-21T15:20:43Z")
> [@jtur88](#): > > The old world bee-eaters are astonishingly beautiful birds. And astonishingly nimble. On “safai” in Botswana, riding in an open vehicle through longish grass, you commonly get bee-eaters flying close formation with the vehicle, waiting for it to scare up various insects. The birds will occasionally dart to the side in a motion that’s difficult for the human eye to follow - but when they return to their flying station they invariably have an insect in their beak. It’s like a magic trick - you can watch it many times and still not see how the bird can manage to react, change course, and return so quickly. It appears to happen in about a tenth of the time it should require. ---
**Author:** ![Tired\_and\_Cranky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a87d85/32.png) [@Tired\_and\_Cranky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tired_and_Cranky)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2016, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-insecivores-catch-bees-do-they-get-stung/766450/12 "2016-09-21T16:04:19Z")
My friend’s dog caught a bee and was stung inside her mouth. The sting caused her jaw and the eye on one side of her face to swell gruesomely. ---
**Author:** ![RainPops](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9dc877/32.png) [@RainPops](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RainPops)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2016, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-insecivores-catch-bees-do-they-get-stung/766450/13 "2016-09-21T16:08:38Z")
hi A-sk the bees! Hold a black microphone up to your lips; the way a model would when shes making a recital; with words figured out in advance so she can impress men in the audience; and then send questions to the bees like “Are you happy when you buzz?” ---
**Author:** ![CC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f1d935/32.png) [@CC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CC)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2016, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-insecivores-catch-bees-do-they-get-stung/766450/14 "2016-09-21T16:59:37Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > They do. But if they get stung they either stop trying to catch bees, or learn to handle them so they don’t get stung. > > Besides Bee-eaters, other birds sometimes eat bees, including Summer Tanagers, Kingbirds, Thrushes, Mockingbirds, and others. > > [Here’s a bee-eater killing and eating a bee after catching it.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWLnbd_y2h0) The bee can’t sting the bird’s bill, so as long as it kills the bee before swallowing it there’s no problem. Cool. Still raises the question of why these birds would evolve to be able to eat bees, of all things. What do bees provide that other flying insects do not? Seems to be an unusually pointed adaptation. Or is it simply the way they happened to develop? ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2016, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-insecivores-catch-bees-do-they-get-stung/766450/15 "2016-09-21T17:10:49Z")
> [@CC](#): > > . What do bees provide that other flying insects do not? A substantial food source untapped by many other predators. There are a lot of bees and wasps, which = a lot of food. There is tons of competition for flying insects in general. Adding in or specializing in hymenoptera allows you to access a tempting resource that others are avoiding. ---
**Author:** ![Hypno-Toad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2016, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-insecivores-catch-bees-do-they-get-stung/766450/16 "2016-09-21T17:16:59Z")
NM. ---
**Author:** ![Dana\_Scully](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5daacb/32.png) [@Dana\_Scully](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dana_Scully)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2016, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-insecivores-catch-bees-do-they-get-stung/766450/17 "2016-09-21T17:20:41Z")
> [@CC](#): > > So no birds catch and swallow bees by mistake? If they do, I’m sure they don’t live long enough to pass on their genes. ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2016, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-insecivores-catch-bees-do-they-get-stung/766450/18 "2016-09-21T17:24:24Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > [Here’s a bee-eater killing and eating a bee after catching it.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWLnbd_y2h0) The bee can’t sting the bird’s bill, so as long as it kills the bee before swallowing it there’s no problem. Just going by the earlier wiki cite, it also knocks the stinger off before eating it, which you can see it doing in your video when it rubs it against the branch. Seems like a lot of work for not a lot of food. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2016, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-insecivores-catch-bees-do-they-get-stung/766450/19 "2016-09-21T17:56:41Z")
> [@CC](#): > > Cool. Still raises the question of why these birds would evolve to be able to eat bees, of all things. What do bees provide that other flying insects do not? Seems to be an unusually pointed adaptation. Or is it simply the way they happened to develop? > [@Joey\_P](#): > > Just going by the earlier wiki cite, it also knocks the stinger off before eating it, which you can see it doing in your video when it rubs it against the branch. > Seems like a lot of work for not a lot of food. As has been said, bees and wasps are very abundant food source that most other insectivores avoid. They are actually pretty substantial insects that are larger than the insects many other birds eat. Likewise, many animals (anteaters, aardvarks, pangolins, numbats) have independently evolved to eat ants and termites despite the fact that they often bite, sting, or are chemically defended. ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2016, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-insecivores-catch-bees-do-they-get-stung/766450/20 "2016-09-21T18:00:59Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > Likewise, many animals (anteaters, aardvarks, pangolins, **numbats** ) have independently evolved to eat ants and termites despite the fact that they often bite, sting, or are chemically defended. (Emphasis added) That’s that cutest creature I’ve never heard of until today. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-insecivores-catch-bees-do-they-get-stung/766450.md?page=2)