Honeybees possess a unique, self-sacrificing defense mechanism involving barbed stingers that lodge in mammals, leading to the bee's death but maximizing venom delivery and signaling for colony defense. This evolved strategy is driven by the need to protect the colony from large predators and the worker bees' non-reproductive role.
Mind Map
Click to expand
Click to explore the full interactive mind map • Zoom, pan, and navigate
Honeybees are adorable. They're fuzzy,
colorful, and make delicious honey. They
also coordinate attacks on bears and
other mammals for the greater good of
the colony. How did an animal so cute
become such a
badass? What are the secrets of the
honeybee stinger? And why did they die
after stinging? This is the science of
Hi, I'm Danielle Dufo and you're
watching Animal Logic. Honeybees have
one of the most hardcore defense
mechanisms on Earth. When they sting a
large animal, like a mammal, their
stingers get lodged in their fo's skin,
and the bee dies. This is common
knowledge, but it isn't common behavior.
Most venomous insects can easily inject
their venom without dying. Wasps, ants,
and even other bees sting and live to
fly another day. So, why are the cutest
insects the most dramatic ones? Why do
they need to die for the greater good?
And how can losing brave warriors
possibly benefit the colony? These are
surprisingly complicated questions. So,
let's dig in. The beasting is basically
a venom injecting harpoon. If you zoom
in, you'll see two barbed blades and a
stabilizing structure to hold them in
place. The blades are controlled by
muscles in the bee's abdomen and are
thrust one at a time in an alternating
pattern. As the blades dig into the
skin, the backward-facing barbs catch
into the fleshy parts, helping them dig
deeper and deeper. The stabilizing
structure is connected to the venom
reservoir and deposits it as the blades
penetrate the skin.
Okay, that's terrifying, but it's not
too different from other stingers or
even the probosus of a mosquito. It's a
knife connected to a stiff hose, kind of
like a bayonet. The only difference,
which is a huge difference, is the
backwards facing barbs. The barbs, much
like the barbs of the spines of a
cactus, are designed to make the
stabbing easy, but the removal almost
impossible. It's a bit counterintuitive,
but a barbed stinger goes in easier than
a smooth stinger. The barbs help
concentrate the force at the tip of the
spear. So, the tiny honeybee needs less
force to pierce the tough skin of a bear
or a human. But because there's always a
butt in nature, the barbs make it much
harder to remove the stinger. The bee
would need about 10 times more force to
take it out than it needed to put it in.
And quite simply, she ain't that strong.
So instead of getting stuck forever and
then quickly getting squashed by the
mammal, the bee flies away and the
stinger gets ripped out of its body. The
venom sack stays attached and continues
to pump venom after the bee has escaped.
This is called sting automy, and it's an
amazing way to inject the maximum amount
of venom and cause the maximum amount of
pain. The ripping off of the stinger
also releases alarm pherommones. So, at
the same time as the mammal is being
injected without juice, chemicals are in
the air to tell the other bees to do the
same. This is how you end up with one of
those classic my girl situations.
Unfortunately, it isn't a clean break.
Along with the venom sack, parts of the
abdomen, digestive system, and muscles
of the honeybee are ripped off, which
inevitably causes it to die. But
sometimes it takes up to 5 days for the
bee to finally pass away. And during
this time, they can still chase the
mammal or even bite it. Yep, bees can
bite. Apparently, we don't even know how
much it hurts. We don't even know for
sure if bees feel pain at all the way
that we understand it, but that's a
question for another episode. What we do
know is that bees are very motivated to
protect their colonies and will make the
mammals suffer for a couple of hours and
then be very itchy for a few more days.
The idea of max pain is to discourage
the mammal from ever getting close to
bees again. But this is unlikely to
happen because honey is undeniably
delicious. You've probably noticed that
I've been calling the bee's mortal enemy
a mammal. This is because these
gut-wrenching stings are only lethal
when they're on mammals or other large
animals with elastic flesh and skin. Our
inherent squishiness is what traps the
stinger in our skin. When bees fight
other insects with hard exoskeletons,
the stinger doesn't get stuck. That
means they can sting multiple times just
like wasps and ants. But still,
sacrificing themselves by tearing their
guts apart is a pretty extreme behavior.
Why would a honeybee choose to do this?
And how could this have evolved? Female
workers, which are the only members of
the colony who can sting, already don't
get to reproduce. Only their mom, the
queen bee, gets to reproduce. Their job
is to make sure their mom has as many
babies as possible. And if it means
dying to protect their mom and their
siblings, that's a sacrifice they
instinctively make. Colonies have
thousands of honeybees. Losing a few
workers to scare off an existential
threat is more than worth it. Speaking
of their mom, the queen bee has a
similar stinger structure to the worker
bees, except she uses it to lay her
eggs. Their ancestors used those hoses
exclusively for reproduction, but over
time some species adapted to also use
them as venomous hypodermic needles.
Queens also have a stinger, but it's
smaller, less barbed, and used mostly to
fight other queens. Honeybees are not
the only social insects that sacrifice
themselves for the horde. Camponotus
ants, also known as exploding ants, can
crack open their exoskeletons and
release sticky chemicals to immobilize
predators and rival ants. Globetermes
termites also do the same thing to fight
off ants. So really, it's not that
strange for insects to sacrifice
themselves. But some others are
perfectly happy stinging you over and
over again. This is the case with the
most annoying insect of the summer, the
yellow jacket wasp. Yellow jackets are
everywhere these days. They have found
in humans a really consistent source of
food. They love sugary foods to get
energy for themselves and protein heavy
snacks to bring back to the colony to
feed the larae. If you try to fight them
off, you'll get quickly stung and the
wasp will fly away to continue looking
for food elsewhere. They're the worst.
The reason they don't die is simply
because their stingers are smooth. This
means the stinger doesn't get stuck, so
it can be used multiple times. The
trade-off is that each sting injects
less venom compared to a honeybee sting.
So why did they go that way? There are
two major differences. First of all,
honeybee predators are usually very
large, like bears who try to destroy the
colony and eat all the honey. They don't
give a bother if the whole colony
collapses after that. So, the bees need
to send a very strong message and
provide the most painful sting they can
muster in their little body. Wasp
predators are usually smaller. Birds,
small mammals, and other insects might
try to break into the colony to eat the
nutritious larae. They get attacked a
lot, so being able to fight multiple
times is more valuable than causing a
lot of damage, but just once. But
secondly, and probably most importantly,
wasps hunt. Adult yellow jackets survive
mostly on a diet of sugar. But the larae
need a lot of protein and other
nutrients to grow and reach
metamorphosis. So the adults hunt small
insects and other invertebrates to bring
back to the colony to feed the babies.
The babies in return secrete a sugarrich
goop out of their mouth which the adults
happily drink
up. Yeah, cool. That's nice, I guess.
Disgusting, but nice. The babies pull
their own weight since they're just a
few days old. They will one day grow to
ruin our picnics and steal our food to
exchange it for sweet baby goop. So,
there you have it. The combination of
having to fight off massive predators
and inject huge amounts of venom,
combined with the fact that they're
vegan and don't need their stingers to
hunt has created the perfect conditions
for honeybees to develop singleuse
defense mechanisms. It makes sense and
it's pretty cool to see how evolution
solved this problem for the bees. If you
want to learn more about the amazing
world of bees, check out this episode we
made a couple of years ago. And if you
can support any bee protecting NOS's,
please do so. Bees play a super
important role in our
ecosystems. We really need them. [Music]
So, what should we talk about next?
Please let me know in the comments. And
don't forget to subscribe for new
episodes every week. Thanks for
Click on any text or timestamp to jump to that moment in the video
Share:
Most transcripts ready in under 5 seconds
One-Click Copy125+ LanguagesSearch ContentJump to Timestamps
Paste YouTube URL
Enter any YouTube video link to get the full transcript
Transcript Extraction Form
Most transcripts ready in under 5 seconds
Get Our Chrome Extension
Get transcripts instantly without leaving YouTube. Install our Chrome extension for one-click access to any video's transcript directly on the watch page.
