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As a beekeeper for several years I have posited that bees have evolved to die after stinging because the act of stinging can cause pathogens from the creature b

As a beekeeper for several years I have posited that bees have evolved to die after stinging because the act of stinging can cause pathogens from the creature being stung to adhere to the stinging bee. This would create an easy vector into the hive where it would then spread eventually infecting the queen. It would be interesting if someone with some game theory experience could model this behavior.

323 4y ago
Pathogens are pretty species specific. It's quite unlikely a bee could get infected by whatever a mammal is carrying. And it would be easier to evolve "needle cleaning" (flushing acid over it for example).
mytailorisrich 4y ago
I don't think game theory is involved as there is no 'conscious' decision involved. Your theory is purely based on evolution through natural selection: the death of a bee after it has strung would increase the survival chances of the hive enough that, over time that (initially random) trait would be favoured.
- jwarden 4y ago
  Game theory doesn't have to operate at the level of individuals making conscious decisions. Consider the concept of the Evolutionary Stable Strategy: https://cs.mcgill.ca/~rwest/wikispeedia/wpcd/wp/e/Evolutionarily_stable_strategy.htm#:~:text=In%20game%20theory%2C%20an%20evolutionarily,refinement%20to%20a%20Nash%20equilibrium https://cs.mcgill.ca/~rwest/wikispeedia/wpcd/wp/e/Evolutiona....
  - mytailorisrich 4y ago
    OK, thanks. Even so, IMHO this is 'simple' evolution through natural selection because a hive is equivalent to a single individual, not a population, evolutionary-speaking since a single individual reproduces and all the bees are also the offsprings of a single individual. So ultimately, IMHO the characteristics and behaviour of the hive only depend on the Queen and its survival. Which can also explain in part why sacrificing individual bees might be a successful strategy.
svnt 4y ago
The bees often don’t die immediately, and could very well return to the hive. Also, except in accidents, in nature this death generally happens at the hive, when eg a bear is eating it.
poulsbohemian 4y ago
As a fellow beekeeper, I like the cut of your jib - seems like you've done some interesting thinking on this point and it certainly seems like an idea that could merit further research. That said, my personal answer to this is in line with what the author concludes is a possible answer: "Perhaps because they're disposable parts of a larger super-organism which has evolved by multi-level selection" IE: basically everything the hive does, the hive does together and individual bee matter very little. In fact, upon reflection it might make sense to view an individual bee as more akin to a cell in mammals as opposed to an individual organism, IE: cells can die or be regenerated, but the overall body continues. Given that bee lifespans are measured in weeks, even a bee that does not sacrifice itself stinging in defense of the hive will have a very short existence - and be replaced by thousands of others in short order if the queen is healthy.
acyou 4y ago
Interesting thought. My thought is that it wouldn't necessarily take many generations to evolve this trait. A single generation of bees dying after stinging would have a huge advantage over such a hypothetical disease. Wondering: 1. Do all bee species die after stinging? 2. Do bees always die? What's the mortality rate? There may be plenty of diseases out there living off bees and other hosts, that are pervasive enough to provide sustained evolutionary pressure to facilitate this development. We are not speculating on much here. Some others have mentioned the unit economics of losing single bees vs. Losing the whole hive are really excellent.
krisoft 4y ago
I’m not sure game theory experience is the missing bit here. What are the chances of a bee getting infected by stinging an intruder? What are the chances of a bee not stinging an intruder and getting infected? (By just doing normal bee business, and during a hive intrusion) What are the chances that the infection will spread from that bee to a next inside the hive? What are the consequences of an infection? Weather or not what you are saying makes sense depends on the answer to these questions. But these questions are not in the field of game theory. These are questions of bee epidemiology really.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- dmurray 4y ago
  Also, what are the consequences to the hive of losing a bee? It's a pretty small energy investment to make a new one. The reproductive success of the bee is the reproductive success of the hive - it doesn't have any way to pass on its individual genes.
nordsieck 4y ago
> I have posited that bees have evolved to die after stinging because the act of stinging can cause pathogens from the creature being stung to adhere to the stinging bee. OK. But why do bees die after stinging, but wasps don't.
- manfre 4y ago
  Bees have a barbed stinger that they can't pull out. Wasps don't have a barbed stinger.
- Retric 4y ago
  Bees can sting other insects just fine. Also these Bees can’t reproduce, so that seems like an obvious difference. From the hives perspective it’s a question of effectiveness vs the utility of individual bees remaining lifespan. Being even slightly more effective at discouraging mammals from raiding a hive for honey is presumably worth the loss of individual bees. Wasps on the other hand lack the wealth of a bee hive so presumably different tradeoffs are worthwhile.
  - imtringued 4y ago
    I have been looking for this comment! Bees need to defend themselves against other insects. The stinger doesn't detach when the threat isn't great enough to warrant suicide.
  - slowhand09 4y ago
    I don't know this fo ra fact. Actually I'd never even heard this before. I'd surmise the act of pulling a stinger out of another insect may be less than the amount required to pull the stinger form the bee's body, thus preserving the bee.
- Raydovsky 4y ago
  Because wasps don't live in large colonies. Thus losing one wasp would be more damaging than the risk of infection. Also wasp nests aren't as hot and humid as bee hives
- 4y ago
eternalban 4y ago
I think another possible evolutionary reason may be preventing rogue drones. A rogue drone that can sting repeatedly is a huge risk to a hive since security screening is only enforced at entrance and the rogue one(s) are inside the hive. This way, with the one-shot stingers, the worst possible damage is the loss of another bee, and the problem drone has taken care of itself. What's your take on that hypothesis?
- the_af 4y ago
  Do you mean rogue "worker bee" rather than "drone"? Drones don't have stingers.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- glompers 4y ago
  But as lanrei comments, "When bees sting other insects they can sting them multiple times, like a wasp."
IIAOPSW 4y ago
I know a reasonable amount of game theory and I think you're looking at the wrong field for insight. The stung animal isn't making a strategic choice to carry pathogens around which might "payback" the some hypothetical bee hive which may or may not sting them. From the bees perspective the choice of strategy is independent of any other actors strategic decisions. Its just a normal optimization problem, not game-theoretic coupled optimization problems.
- mytailorisrich 4y ago
  Since only the Queen reproduces in a hive and all the bees are its sterile offsprings, IMHO the whole hive is equivalent to the Queen evolutionary-speaking. Individual bees are not independent actors. So I think there is no game theory here and this is no different than a giraffe growing a longer neck.
- NathanielBaking 4y ago
  Good point. I took a chance with my Great Courses only knowledge of game theory. Another point people are pointing out is that bees don't usually die after stinging other bee. Other bees are the easiest vectors for the infections I have had to deal with. I wonder what evolutionary advantage of not returning to the hive grants when a bee stings a larger animal (mammal, bird, etc).
  - mrtnmcc 4y ago
    The mating process of the drone male bees (with suicidal semelparity) maybe has a more obvious (but similar?) answer in that they have served their role and want to maximize their reproductive effectiveness. Certainly attaching your venom pump to a mammal will help discourage it now and in the future. Given average bee lifetimes are 3-4 weeks anyway, it's also not much of a sacrifice for the hive. The genetic similarly of bees to their queen is higher (75%) than most species, so kinship theory may point to less individualistic behavior as well. https://www.lakeforest.edu/news/the-emerging-study-of-kinship-theory-in-the-honeybee-apis-mellifera https://www.lakeforest.edu/news/the-emerging-study-of-kinshi...
dejj 4y ago
During "heatballing", may bees not also contract pathogens?

323 4y ago

Pathogens are pretty species specific. It's quite unlikely a bee could get infected by whatever a mammal is carrying. And it would be easier to evolve "needle cleaning" (flushing acid over it for example).

mytailorisrich 4y ago

I don't think game theory is involved as there is no 'conscious' decision involved. Your theory is purely based on evolution through natural selection: the death of a bee after it has strung would increase the survival chances of the hive enough that, over time that (initially random) trait would be favoured.

jwarden 4y ago
Game theory doesn't have to operate at the level of individuals making conscious decisions. Consider the concept of the Evolutionary Stable Strategy: https://cs.mcgill.ca/~rwest/wikispeedia/wpcd/wp/e/Evolutionarily_stable_strategy.htm#:~:text=In%20game%20theory%2C%20an%20evolutionarily,refinement%20to%20a%20Nash%20equilibrium https://cs.mcgill.ca/~rwest/wikispeedia/wpcd/wp/e/Evolutiona....
- mytailorisrich 4y ago
  OK, thanks. Even so, IMHO this is 'simple' evolution through natural selection because a hive is equivalent to a single individual, not a population, evolutionary-speaking since a single individual reproduces and all the bees are also the offsprings of a single individual. So ultimately, IMHO the characteristics and behaviour of the hive only depend on the Queen and its survival. Which can also explain in part why sacrificing individual bees might be a successful strategy.

svnt 4y ago

The bees often don’t die immediately, and could very well return to the hive. Also, except in accidents, in nature this death generally happens at the hive, when eg a bear is eating it.

poulsbohemian 4y ago

As a fellow beekeeper, I like the cut of your jib - seems like you've done some interesting thinking on this point and it certainly seems like an idea that could merit further research. That said, my personal answer to this is in line with what the author concludes is a possible answer: "Perhaps because they're disposable parts of a larger super-organism which has evolved by multi-level selection" IE: basically everything the hive does, the hive does together and individual bee matter very little. In fact, upon reflection it might make sense to view an individual bee as more akin to a cell in mammals as opposed to an individual organism, IE: cells can die or be regenerated, but the overall body continues. Given that bee lifespans are measured in weeks, even a bee that does not sacrifice itself stinging in defense of the hive will have a very short existence - and be replaced by thousands of others in short order if the queen is healthy.

acyou 4y ago

Interesting thought. My thought is that it wouldn't necessarily take many generations to evolve this trait. A single generation of bees dying after stinging would have a huge advantage over such a hypothetical disease. Wondering: 1. Do all bee species die after stinging? 2. Do bees always die? What's the mortality rate? There may be plenty of diseases out there living off bees and other hosts, that are pervasive enough to provide sustained evolutionary pressure to facilitate this development. We are not speculating on much here. Some others have mentioned the unit economics of losing single bees vs. Losing the whole hive are really excellent.

krisoft 4y ago

I’m not sure game theory experience is the missing bit here. What are the chances of a bee getting infected by stinging an intruder? What are the chances of a bee not stinging an intruder and getting infected? (By just doing normal bee business, and during a hive intrusion) What are the chances that the infection will spread from that bee to a next inside the hive? What are the consequences of an infection? Weather or not what you are saying makes sense depends on the answer to these questions. But these questions are not in the field of game theory. These are questions of bee epidemiology really.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
dmurray 4y ago
Also, what are the consequences to the hive of losing a bee? It's a pretty small energy investment to make a new one. The reproductive success of the bee is the reproductive success of the hive - it doesn't have any way to pass on its individual genes.

nordsieck 4y ago

> I have posited that bees have evolved to die after stinging because the act of stinging can cause pathogens from the creature being stung to adhere to the stinging bee. OK. But why do bees die after stinging, but wasps don't.

manfre 4y ago
Bees have a barbed stinger that they can't pull out. Wasps don't have a barbed stinger.
Retric 4y ago
Bees can sting other insects just fine. Also these Bees can’t reproduce, so that seems like an obvious difference. From the hives perspective it’s a question of effectiveness vs the utility of individual bees remaining lifespan. Being even slightly more effective at discouraging mammals from raiding a hive for honey is presumably worth the loss of individual bees. Wasps on the other hand lack the wealth of a bee hive so presumably different tradeoffs are worthwhile.
- imtringued 4y ago
  I have been looking for this comment! Bees need to defend themselves against other insects. The stinger doesn't detach when the threat isn't great enough to warrant suicide.
- slowhand09 4y ago
  I don't know this fo ra fact. Actually I'd never even heard this before. I'd surmise the act of pulling a stinger out of another insect may be less than the amount required to pull the stinger form the bee's body, thus preserving the bee.
Raydovsky 4y ago
Because wasps don't live in large colonies. Thus losing one wasp would be more damaging than the risk of infection. Also wasp nests aren't as hot and humid as bee hives
4y ago

eternalban 4y ago

I think another possible evolutionary reason may be preventing rogue drones. A rogue drone that can sting repeatedly is a huge risk to a hive since security screening is only enforced at entrance and the rogue one(s) are inside the hive. This way, with the one-shot stingers, the worst possible damage is the loss of another bee, and the problem drone has taken care of itself. What's your take on that hypothesis?

the_af 4y ago
Do you mean rogue "worker bee" rather than "drone"? Drones don't have stingers.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
glompers 4y ago
But as lanrei comments, "When bees sting other insects they can sting them multiple times, like a wasp."

IIAOPSW 4y ago

I know a reasonable amount of game theory and I think you're looking at the wrong field for insight. The stung animal isn't making a strategic choice to carry pathogens around which might "payback" the some hypothetical bee hive which may or may not sting them. From the bees perspective the choice of strategy is independent of any other actors strategic decisions. Its just a normal optimization problem, not game-theoretic coupled optimization problems.

mytailorisrich 4y ago
Since only the Queen reproduces in a hive and all the bees are its sterile offsprings, IMHO the whole hive is equivalent to the Queen evolutionary-speaking. Individual bees are not independent actors. So I think there is no game theory here and this is no different than a giraffe growing a longer neck.
NathanielBaking 4y ago
Good point. I took a chance with my Great Courses only knowledge of game theory. Another point people are pointing out is that bees don't usually die after stinging other bee. Other bees are the easiest vectors for the infections I have had to deal with. I wonder what evolutionary advantage of not returning to the hive grants when a bee stings a larger animal (mammal, bird, etc).
- mrtnmcc 4y ago
  The mating process of the drone male bees (with suicidal semelparity) maybe has a more obvious (but similar?) answer in that they have served their role and want to maximize their reproductive effectiveness. Certainly attaching your venom pump to a mammal will help discourage it now and in the future. Given average bee lifetimes are 3-4 weeks anyway, it's also not much of a sacrifice for the hive. The genetic similarly of bees to their queen is higher (75%) than most species, so kinship theory may point to less individualistic behavior as well. https://www.lakeforest.edu/news/the-emerging-study-of-kinship-theory-in-the-honeybee-apis-mellifera https://www.lakeforest.edu/news/the-emerging-study-of-kinshi...

dejj 4y ago

During "heatballing", may bees not also contract pathogens?