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Why do bees die when they sting you? (2021)
- tibbon 2y agoThe group selection part is really interesting evolution-wise. It seems a very slow and difficult method of selection. I had never considered how something dying, and not passing along their genetics, could enforce a genetic trait.
- odyssey7 2y agoIt requires such a depth of evolution as to make it absurd to imagine that the genus homo is the point at which altruism emerged. Animals care about each other.
- crazydoggers 2y ago“Group selection” is not a thing. The article hand waves this always with > some biologists still get really triggered about group selection and deny its evolutionary importance Which is dishonest at best. The vast majority of biologist have realized group selection doesn’t work as proposed. [0] What people thought was group selection was just kin selection working over time. All evolution works at the level of the gene. Genes “want” to reproduce more of themselves. And if the same gene is in a kin, then it can favor enhancing the survival of kin that carry copies of itself. At a macro level this can be misreported as group selection, but to be sure, the selection is happening at the level of the gene, and reaches at most to kin sharing genes. The article then goes on to say > The nice story I told above about the evolution of altruism could just have easily been applied to humans. Yet we do not exist in eusocial colonies, so there must be something else going on And he then talks about gene selection and the fact that bees are haplodiploidy, which is indeed the cause of the “altruism” we see. His dismissal of haplodiploidy at the end of the article is a weak argument. Just because haplodiploidy in other species doesn’t lead to eusocial groups, or that eusocial groups can occur without haplodiploidy are not sufficient arguments that dismiss the effects of haplodiploidy and kin selection favoring altruism in eusocial bees. I highly recommend people interested in these topics to read the seminal Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins. [1] 0. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_selection#Criticism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_selection#Criticism 1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Selfish_Gene https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Selfish_Gene
- glenstein 2y agoAgreed, it's a disappointing and discrediting detour in an article that's about a fascinating topic. As you note, this has been worked out via haplodiploidy, which doesn't require venturing into theorizing about group selection or altruism. And just to take a beat, and explain why group selection "triggers" people (in the author's wording), it's because it violates our fundamental, bedrock idea of causality which is no small thing, and anyone having a cavalier attitude about that probably doesn't belong in a room where these ideas are being deliberated. We understand physics to be causally closed, and expect "higher level" explanations to be compatible with the constraints of physics. A model example in taking causality seriously, and proceeding with extreme care and extreme caution about challenging that intuition, I think is best exhibited in Quantum Mechanics, where, after excruciatingly careful examination of data and lots of hard thinking about implications, and lots of accounting for it's almost vulgar challenge to our intuitions, do we dare offer a model that challenges our basic idea of causation. That deviation is appropriately treated as profound, by contrast with the fast and loose invocation of group selection you find in some evolutionary explanations.
- crazydoggers 2y agoYes! To put a finer point on it, group selection theories don’t have a specific physical explanation for how they operate, instead veering into philosophical explanations. Ultimately natural selection must operate on the gene. Genes are the only source of information that gets passed to offspring through germ line cells in sexual reproduction or mitosis in asexual reproduction (don’t get me started on the fad of epigenetics, which is just a fancy term for standard DNA controlled embryological differentiation.) The replication of genes and the information they encode, are the physical cause of the effect of phenotypes. Group selection theorists (of which there are few) have no physical cause that allows selection to occur on the level of the group, and there’s no sound hypothesis of such that I have heard of. You’d need some physical mechanism for information flow between individuals in a group for that to be the case, and outside of kin inheritance, there’s nothing like that that exists.
- hbn 2y agoThink about how most people are naturally scared of heights, or snakes. A lot of dogs get freaked out by snakes too, or if you play with a hair clip in front of them, which looks like a snake. The ones that aren't afraid of those things are more likely to die from falling off a cliff or being injected with venom. I'm personally someone who is freaked out heavily by insects. I know logically a house centipede or a harmless spider can't hurt me, but seemingly my brain has something in it that overrides my entire body when I see one and disgusts me. Usually it's irrational, but it probably helps humanity on a larger scale to avoid the ones that are dangerous! There's a lot about the humans body that naturally gives us non-logical instincts that help us to survive and breed. People like having sex, regardless of whether they want a baby. There's no logic to it, but we know what we like! The more advanced we get, the more it becomes apparent that we're just monkeys in shoes.
- caseyohara 2y ago> A lot of dogs get freaked out by snakes too, or if you play with a hair clip in front of them, which looks like a snake. Some cats are afraid of cucumbers, presumably because the shape and color resembles a snake. Here’s a funny compilation: https://youtu.be/oDpQ2uGLUKU https://youtu.be/oDpQ2uGLUKU
- FartyMcFarter 2y ago> Some cats are afraid of cucumbers, presumably because the shape and color resembles a snake. Here’s a funny compilation: https://youtu.be/oDpQ2uGLUKU https://youtu.be/oDpQ2uGLUKU It's funny in a way, but if you think about it it's actually abusive. Would you think it's funny if you were terrified of snakes and someone randomly put a fake snake next to you when you were just relaxing?
- s1artibartfast 2y agogroup selection works a lot better when the sacrificing individuals are sterile, with no other hope of passing on their genetics. See also Eunuchs and Castration as a way to recreate a similar dynamic with humans. Castration had the fascinating ability to bind the interests of the Eunuchs more closely with the power structures and rules, by removing the option of family and progeny of their own. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eunuch#Asia_and_Africa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eunuch#Asia_and_Africa [Edit] As crazydoggers points out, it is probably better to view this through the lens of kin selection, with reproducers as the evolutionary agents. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42749677 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42749677
- DontchaKnowit 2y agoIs that not essentially the only way that selection happens? You are just desvribing basic natural selection
- gus_massa 2y agoIt's somewhat explained near the end of the article. Sex in bees (and ants) is weird. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex-determination_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex-determination_system Humans use XY system, so we share 50% of your genes with your children, parents and siblings (in average). Bees and ants use X0 system. A female bee share 50% of your genes with their own daughters, 75% with their mother and 75% with their female parents and 75% with their female siblings (in average). So, from the bee's genes point of view instead of having their own children it's better to kidnap their mother and force her to have more female children. And a consequence is that instead of running away to form their new family in a safe place it's better to die protecting their mother.
- JadeNB 2y ago> 75% with their mother and 75% with their female parents Are these different things for bees?
- gus_massa 2y agoSorry, cut&paste typo.
- penteract 2y agoYour conclusion is right, but in bees, sex is determined by Haplodiploidy ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplodiploidy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplodiploidy ), not X0. Also, the daughters have the same number of chromosomes as the mother so they share 50%, not 75% of their genes with their mother (they do share an average of 75% of their genes with their sisters).
- redundantly 2y agoThe next time my wife asks me why we have something new, my response will be "Because in a capitalistic society, you can exchange money for ____."
- GauntletWizard 2y agoMoney can be exchanged for goods and services - Homer Simpson's brain https://youtu.be/A81DYZh6KaQ https://youtu.be/A81DYZh6KaQ
- ahazred8ta 2y agoThere are many valid explanations. https://www.ft.com/lol-404-theories https://www.ft.com/lol-404-theories
- idatum 2y agoThis link is awesome. Thanks for sharing!
- raldi 2y ago> the result is the picture at the top of this article But there is no picture at the top of the article, at least on mobile.
- leslielurker 2y agoIt's not loading for me in Firefox on desktop either; I found the image in the source code if anyone is interested: https://www.subanima.org/content/images/size/w1200/2021/11/beedead.png https://www.subanima.org/content/images/size/w1200/2021/11/b... edit: looks intentional? /* Remove feature image from top of articles */ .gh-article-image { display: none; }
- LASR 2y agoThis concept blew my mind when I internalized it. Same reason why honest signals exist. A peacock with very rich feathers is a fitness disadvantage. But they find mates more successfully. These traits persist in the gene pool. It’s so much easier to just evolve a cheating trait that does the job of finding a mate even without the required fitness. But the signals stay honest for the most part. Why? It’s because ultimately the species survives, not the individuals. In a lot of cases, something that makes the individual more fit also makes the species more fit. But in some cases, they are inversely proportional. Hence you end up with suicidal genes that favor the death of the individuals for the greater good of the species. Now extrapolating to human society, most nations have landed on a system where taxes are paid to the government. Every individual might complain and try to get out of paying. But we do. Why? Maybe because societies where that wasn’t a thing were less fit and didn’t last long enough to still be around.
- pfdietz 2y ago> It’s because ultimately the species survives, not the individuals. No, this is wrong. "Survival of the species" isn't a basis for selection. It will not lead to a gene becoming more prevalent in a population of interbreeding individuals. Bees sacrifice themselves because they share genes with the queen; genes that are involved in this sacrifice increase their relative abundance in the bee gene pool by increasing the fitness of the superorganism that is the colony.
- Salgat 2y agoThat's not entirely true. For example, being gay is hypothesized to give an evolutionary advantage because you can provide care for your sibling's children, who share their dna with you. Same goes for early menopause. That can extend to small villages where individuals may give up their own resources for a greater survival chance of their kin within the collective.
- asingnh 2y agoAre homosexuality and early menopause genetic conditions?
- WalterBright 2y agoA fascinating read about such things is "The Red Queen" by Ridley. https://www.amazon.com/Red-Queen-Evolution-Human-Nature/dp/0060556579 https://www.amazon.com/Red-Queen-Evolution-Human-Nature/dp/0... It's all about the propagation of the genes, not the survival of the organism.
- n8henrie 2y agoRead this in my early 20s and loved it. Many ideas that have stuck with me. Hoping to reread it with my wife soon, nearly 20 years later, and see how it aged.
- WalterBright 2y agoWhy do humans live long enough to be grandparents? It's because grandparents take care of the grandkids while the parents work.
- derektank 2y agoI find the grandparents hypothesis compelling at first glance but it sort of begs the question, why don't we live indefinitely in the first place? There are obvious answers, we make tradeoffs to improve performance early in life at the expense of long term function, but it doesn't seem like the reproductive benefits of caring for a grandchild that only shares a 1/4 of your DNA necessarily tips the scales of selection towards longevity. Especially when, in theory, men remain fertile their entire lives and thus there should have always been some selection for longer life spans. You would expect the reproductive benefits of a 70 year old caring for their own child might be at least comparable to 70 year old caring for a grandchild.
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 2y ago> why don't we live indefinitely in the first place? It doesn’t seem to be necessary for the survival of our genes. > You would expect the reproductive benefits of a 70 year old caring for their own child might be at least comparable to 70 year old caring for a grandchild. They’re competing with 20-30 year-olds with better physical fitness for a mate. This would be relevant for ~99% of human existence even if it’s not totally relevant today.
- WalterBright 2y agowhy don't we live indefinitely in the first place? 1. need to make room for the young, ecosystems are not unlimited 2. we accumulate parasites and diseases as we live. Dying kills them off, too 3. much slower evolution, implying losing ground compared with quickly evolving competitors
- thrance 2y agoMembers of some species take care of the children of others, as well as theirs (Orcas come to mind, humans too if course). There is an advantage in helping others with similar DNA than you, because they will reciprocate.
- spqr0a1 2y agoWhile a bee stinger may get stuck in you, that's not so when stinging fellow insects. The barbs don't catch on an exoskeleton like they do for thick and elastic mammalian skin. An elegant way to deliver more venom to larger targets.
- randall 2y agoWow that's super interesting! What a novel mechanism.
- wizzwizz4 2y agoIf you're careful with the index fingers of opposite hands, you can remove the stinger from your skin without killing the bee.
- pizzafeelsright 2y agoCan someone answer this without an evolutionary presupposition?
- gnkyfrg 2y agoDying worker bees ensure survival of the group without a measurable impact on death of the colony, which when seen as a super organism, means only a part of the organism, leaving the reproducing parts intact, since workers don't mate anyway.
- krapp 2y agoWhat are you asking for, a parable? A metaphor?
- krisoft 2y agoIt is in the article "A honey bee dies when it stings you because its stinger is covered in barbs, causing its abdomen to get ripped out when it tries to fly away. And surviving with your guts spilling out everywhere is pretty bloody hard." That's the baseline answer. It is a simple observation, and at this level of question you don't need to worry about evolution at all.
- pestatije 2y agothey are so pissed off by your presence that they say fuck it, ill fuck this bastard no matter what
- ssener2001 2y ago[dead]
- gnkyfrg 2y ago> we humans and nearly all other mammals certainly don't have a singular queen and a sterile caste of workers. No we have many queens and many sterile workers. Almost all women have children and increasingly more men don't father children. We've outlawed polygamy, but society is trending that way anyway, especially considering online dating statistics. 80% of women are choosing from the top 20% of men. Men die in war. Look at ukraine. A million men dead, while women dance in clubs. Vietnam, on the American side: 55,000 men dead, 8 women dead. Most women stayed home, like the queen bee. Most of those men were sterile for all intents and purposes. If we don't introduce artificial measures, the natural tendency is toward fewer women mating with more men and the end result is one to many. There's a British lady trying to mate 1,000 men. We are more like bees than we like to think.
- lysace 2y agoA random bee sting in class was the straw that broke my back in a mid 90s multivariable calculus lecture at a Swedish university where I was studying CS/EE. It lead to me dropping out. Went to a local internet/web software startup instead and a whole new world opened up. Yes, I had been behind. I'm doing OK now :)
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- hinkley 2y agoAs an easily distracted high schooler just trying to enjoy one of his favorite classes, I discovered I could swat a flying bee dead with my folder. They were getting in through some gap in a window facing an alcove an I think we had four or five one year before Facilities fixed the problem. It worked out, but you don’t really want to go squishing bees in an open area since they release chemicals that put their siblings on alert. If they stay put a glass and a piece of stiff paper are a better solution. But these were buzzing around my fellow students making everyone freak out.
- ec109685 2y agoThe gate keeping of all that calculus for a CS degree is silly. Wasn’t the strongest at math, so grinned and bared but don’t really have a grasp of it anymore, and it would have been a shame to not have graduated with a CS degree because of it.
- calvinmorrison 2y agoI dropped CS for calc 2
- hightrix 2y agoSame. And now I’m 15 years into my software engineering career and the only regret I have is that I didn’t spend more time with linear algebra.
- captn3m0 2y agoAs I've been listening to Mythos recently, I must point out that it is also because Zeus cursed the Bee > In his final response on the matter he declared that she will be a Queen of a colony of workers that will aid her in gathering honey. However, Greek Gods were never truly honourable in their wishes unless it benefitted them directly. In addition to her swarm of workers she was also granted a fatal sting, but this sting would be fatal to her or her colony if they ever used it on another. It was from then on that the honeybees’ was barbed; meaning that if their weapon was ever to be “deployed” that the individual that used their sting would not survive the attack. https://crawliomics.wordpress.com/2019/06/12/zeus-the-honeybee-and-the-sting/ https://crawliomics.wordpress.com/2019/06/12/zeus-the-honeyb...
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- jovial_cavalier 2y ago>Thirdly, the haplodiploidy hypothesis only works if all sisters share the same father and if a queen is biased to produce more daughters than sons. The sex ratio doesn't actually seem like a problem for the theory, because it sounds like for a worker bee, the relatedness of the marginal sibling is 5/8 in expectation, vs. 1/2 relatedness of the marginal offspring. I think you also have to discount the relatedness into the future. If the colony you are born into is already established, your 5/8 related marginal sibling has a much higher likelihood of survival than your 1/2 related marginal offspring when you take into account the risk of breaking from the colony and starting your own. That probably goes some way to explaining the first problem of multiple fathers. Marginal half-siblings are only 1/4 related to the worker, but they may have a greater chance of survival.
- _1tem 2y agoI don't understand why any "why" question in evolutionary biology is ever satisfied with a "survival of the fittest" truism. Any evolutionary explanation you give me is also falsified by the existence of another species with a different/opposite trait. Whatever explanation you give for a bee's barbed stinger is falsified by the wasp's non-barbed one. Also doesn't answer other questions, such as why didn't bees evolve a type of barbed stinger that doesn't rip their guts out and kill them? Or why do they even need a stinger at all, as many insects don't have one? Evolutionary explanations like these for "why" things are the way they are not just pure idle speculation, but they are also often unprovable, unfalsifiable, and have the same circular logic as bad religion. Why do species survive? Because they were the fittest, because they survived. But why?
- trgn 2y agowomen go to the bathroom together because if you squat to pee in the tall grass of the savannah you need somebody to lookout for predators
- sedatk 2y agoWasps and bees have different ecological constraints with different risks involved. There is no contradiction here. They evolved as the fittest in their own constraint set. If bees weren’t fit enough, they would have gone extinct and replaced by bees with non-barbed stingers. There is no magic that makes them survive. Evolution doesn’t have any goals or agenda. That’s why whales still have vestigial hip bones despite having no hips whatsoever. Because it’s not a significant parameter in their survival. Same with barbed stingers of bees.
- jstanley 2y agoI think this is a perfect example of what your parent comment is talking about, being: > unprovable, unfalsifiable, and have the same circular logic as bad religion. You said: > There is no contradiction here. They evolved as the fittest in their own constraint set. If bees weren’t fit enough, they would have gone extinct and replaced by bees with non-barbed stingers. There is no magic that makes them survive. Sure, there's no contradiction, but this is totally circular reasoning that could be used to prove anything. The connection graph between "They survive because they're the fittest" and "They must be the fittest because they survive" is just a circle disconnected from all other knowledge. Your strength as a rationalist is your ability to be more confused by fiction than by reality.[0] But with this circular understanding of natural selection, you could be given a description of absolutely any conceivable configuration of organism and your response would be the same: "they must be the fittest, because they survive, because only the fittest survive" and you haven't gained any understanding at all. There will never be a contradiction, because the argument is disconnected from any larger system of reasoning that could plausibly contradict it. "Hey, there is a random monkey in the Amazon that has 3 hoops on its head and a big hole through its abdomen, isn't that weird? Why are they like that?" "Ah, the hoops and the holes are required for Fitness. Only the Fittest survive, you know. So if they have 3 hoops on their heads and big holes in their abdomens, that is what makes them Fittest. Amen." "Why aren't other monkeys like that then?" "Other monkeys don't need hoops and holes for Fitness. Otherwise they too would have hoops and holes. :)" A better understanding of natural selection would be confused about the hoops and the holes, and that confusion would correlate with either the random monkey species actually not existing, or the model being wrong. As regards the bees: there probably is a reason that dying when stinging confers Fitness. But we should find out what that reason is, rather than state "Fitness because Survival" and feel like we've answered the question. [0] https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5JDkW4MYXit2CquLs/your-strength-as-a-rationalist https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5JDkW4MYXit2CquLs/your-stren...
- yieldcrv 2y agothis is wild because the article starts off with explaining how "why" is a bad question, and then doubles down on this entire thesis explaining why a bee dies when it stings you, a human, and the evolutionary nature supporting it except, its entirely wrong and the foreshadowing about "why" was super important: bees don't 'expect' to die when they sting you. they can sting many creatures and not get their abdomen ripped out because the barb doesn't get stuck in the thing they stung. just like wasps. so this 20 page dissertation is completely baseless.
- arschfick 2y ago[dead]
- metalman 2y agoBee's are a product of many millions of years of evolution, so the why, is that it works! Ever watch bees?, bugs?, other things, up close and in the danger zone? I do. A bee's stinger will embed in you, or me, and then the venom sack rips right out of the bee and it is possible to watch the venom sack pump venom without the bee itself attached anymore. I was attending my mother in her herb garden and commented on there bieng honey bees around, which she disputed, so I caught one, and held its legs while it tried to sting me, and showed her this, but my hands are so callused, that its stinger would not go in, then I let it go. She says I am an improbable creature, and describes me bieng a half Vulcan and half Klingon.
- jpeloquin 2y agoThe concept of indirect fitness must be more complicated than explained here. The article explains it as a worker bee sharing 75% of her genes with her sisters, but only 50% with a child, so there is selection pressure for workers to be sterile and self-sacrificing. But few genes actually differ between individuals, so the percentages are much higher. E.g., I share ~ 99% of my genes with each one of you reading this. Assuming honey bees' genetic variation is not much more extreme than human variation, we're talking about 99.5% vs. 99.75% sharing, which sounds more like an explanation of why altruism would be preferred in general rather than uniquely affecting bees. The article does eventually circle around to acknowledge this, but it's easy to miss and very underdeveloped compared to the discussion of kin selection: "So why do bees die when they sting you? Perhaps because they're disposable parts of a larger super-organism which has evolved by multi-level selection."
- prerok 2y agoHmm, I understand this difference in genes differently. You and I probably share 99% of effective genes, but still the difference in genes is much greater because there we are comparing the entire DNA. There is a lot of non-affecting DNA. And that is what they analyze when comparing DNA of two individuals in forensics.
- jpeloquin 2y agoBased on the information I found, the % difference between two randoms humans in terms of base pairs (including non-coding DNA) is even less than the difference in terms of genes, so the distinction does not materially alter the discussion. Also the article framed its explanation in terms of genes, not base pair sequence. "Between any two humans, the amount of genetic variation—biochemical individuality—is about .1 percent." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK20363/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK20363/ https://book.bionumbers.org/how-genetically-similar-are-two-random-people/ https://book.bionumbers.org/how-genetically-similar-are-two-... Forensic comparisons are mostly about comparing the number of short tandem repeats at handful of loci, a very small part of the the whole genome. If you have any information that indicates the DNA similarity between people is less than 98–99% I would love to hear it. I have not personally analyzed the sequences from the 1000 genome project to check, and am relying on summaries written by other people.
- erikig 2y agoTLDR; Suicidal altruism and costly signaling for the survival of the super-organism. Also, zombie poison delivery pumps.
- harimau777 2y agoAm I the only one who grew up with bees dying after stinging carrying a sort of unspoken significance or meaning? I don't think I ever heard someone actually state it, but growing up I had the feeling that bees dying when they sting you was in some sense "significant" because it meant that bees had to be selective in when they chose to resort to violence. It was almost like an unspoken fable or illustration about the importance of controlling aggression.
- ianbicking 2y agoIt points to another evolutionary pressure that isn't mentioned as often: if an animal is too aggressive humans will exterminate it.
- harimau777 2y agoI had this experience with a wasp nest near my house. I figured "live and let live" until one day I walked out my door and a wasp flew directly over and stung me without provocation. So I got some insecticide and got rid of the nest.
- praveen9920 2y agoStepping back a little and try to projecting that logic onto humans, are we more like super organisms? Interestingly, Our social constructs does have similarities of both superorganism and non- superorganism
- xyzzy_plugh 2y agoIt's even more extreme than that. If you took a random sampling of humans to a version of Earth that had never experienced humans, it would not go well. We're heavily dependant on society and modern technology. We've evolved together. E.g. smaller birth canals and C-sections.
- cryptonector 2y agoHoneybee queens are the only honeybees with stingers that don't die when they sting. That's because the queen bee's stinger has no barbs, and the reason for that is that the queen must not die easily, and she must use her stinger, so if she's going to survive at all her stinger has to not have barbs. The queen almost certainly has to use her stinger when she exits her cocoon: to kill ther other queens that are about to hatch or have hatched already. She also has to possibly use her stinger when she goes out to mate (though she does go with attendants who will defend her if attacked). I was surprised not to find mention of this in TFA. > A honey bee dies when it stings you because its stinger is covered in barbs, causing its abdomen to get ripped out when it tries to fly away. And surviving with your guts spilling out everywhere is pretty bloody hard. There's another interesting detail here: when the worker tries to fly off after stinging, she has to try really hard because the barbs hold the stinger in place, and trying hard causes two things to happen: - noise that attracts other workers to attack the same creature - spreading of the dying bee's distress pheromones that also attract other workers to sting the same creature So when you get stung by a bee near other bees you will be in trouble. That's how you go from one sting to hundreds. And hundreds is enough to kill a human. That's why you don't go near a hive without protection. Being in or near a swarm is safer than being near a hive: the bees in a swarm don't have much (larvae, honey) to protect, so they don't attack.
- abnercoimbre 2y agoUseful reminder nature is terrifying even at its smallest. I'm a little surprised this wasn't taught to me in school.
- nejsjsjsbsb 2y agoYeah: caterpillar parasites
- teeray 2y agoThe queen bee is a formidable final boss with a bad-ass origin story.
- cruftbox 2y agoHobby beekeeper here. Worker bees dies when they sting a person, because the stinger and venom pump remain when they fly off, ripping their abdomen open. The purpose of this is that the venom pump continues to function after they have left, making the sting as painful as possible. Honeybees are a superorganism, where the survival of the colony supersedes the survival of any individual bee.
- isityouyesitsme 2y agoyour comment was excellent. I couldn't read past the article's pretentious opening.
- majgr 2y agoSometimes I observed how it worked after being stung by a bee. It is better to remove sting using force from one side. When two fingertips are used to remove a sting all venom is being pushed into the wound.
- sd3416500 2y ago[dead]
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- _orz_ 2y agoThe title is a bit misleading as it really doesn’t explain why bees die when they sting in the sense of a causality. The article itself mentions that the stinging mechanism bees use, is itself not a prerequisite for how they are organized as wasp use a different one. Very interesting read though.
- gunian 2y agoKind of got me thinking is there any tool or is someone working on something that can parse a DNA and give you the end result for any species? If not what's the main challenge Would be a cool challenge for all the quantum supremacy folk
- supernova87a 2y agoThe interesting question to me is, “does the bee know it’s going to die if it stings you?” And therefore, acts judiciously in deciding when, if ever, to sting? So that it only does it when it’s life-threateningly mad at something?
- buggy6257 2y agoBecause Melissa pissed off Zeus.[1] [1] https://crawliomics.wordpress.com/2019/06/12/zeus-the-honeybee-and-the-sting/ https://crawliomics.wordpress.com/2019/06/12/zeus-the-honeyb...
- lisper 2y ago> The haplodiploidy hypothesis, though nice, is not without its problems. Firstly, there are plenty of species with haplodiploid genetics which do not form eusocial colonies. That is not a problem. Reproductive fitness must always be measured relative to an environment. Just because colony life is a successful strategy for haplodiploid species in some environments does not mean it will be a successful strategy in all environments. You can see this in other species. Female lions live mostly in cooperative groups while male lions and all other large cats (leopards, cheetahs, and tigers) are solitary.
- YeGoblynQueenne 2y agoTo prove Mr Feynman right: because I stomp on it.
- paulg2222 2y ago[flagged]
- EdwardDiego 2y agoOkay champ.
- 752963e64 2y ago[dead]
- JohnHaugeland 2y agoFor the record, almost no bees die when they sting you. This is just a weird myth that people repeat nonstop. This only happens to honeybees, and only when they're stinging humans. Most skin is much thicker than ours, more similar to our feet callouses. The stinger isn't supposed to go in. That's closer to a sword's foil. The reason they panic when it happens is it's not supposed to happen. The stingers are mostly meant for combat with other insects. You can watch these fights on youtube. They never, ever end with the bee self eviscerating. This is a simple example of people trying to look smart by explaining things which, when you check, just aren't true.
- ErigmolCt 2y agoIsn’t that just so unbearably sad? These little creatures work tirelessly their whole lives, buzzing from flower to flower, pollinating the plants that sustain ecosystems and our food supply. They barely get to live a few weeks as worker bees, and then if they ever need to sting to protect their hive... that’s it. Their life ends in an act of ultimate devotion.
- leobg 2y agoThey can actually survive if you let them. Here’s a video of a guy filming himself being stung by a bee, then watching as the bee spins around, works its stinger loose, and flies away: https://youtu.be/G-C77ujnLZo https://youtu.be/G-C77ujnLZo
- mirzap 2y agoBees don't die right away; they all fly off after stinging, but they will eventually die for sure.
- apopapo 2y agoThis entire article is flawed in my opinion. Bees are not "suicidal". They are not meant to die after they sting. It's just that they have not adapted to stinging mammals with elastic skin (and probably will not). Bees can absolutely live after stinging if they manage to dislodge the stinger from the skin.
- ssener2001 2y ago[dead]
- jsdwarf 2y agoI can offer another "why?" How many animals attack a wasp's nest? Almost zero, except other wasps in a territory war? How many animals attack a beehive? Humans, bears, apes,.. pretty any big enough mammal that can climb. So bees not only suffer from much more predators due to their precious honey, in my view they also need to differentiate between "honey maker" and warrior (sting) functions as their poison could contaminate the honey. Why do the males have to die? Because almost none of their enemies can extract a bee sting from their skin. Once stung, the poison glands and some muscles remain with the sting, acting as a "poison pump". This could deter the attacker longer from a second attack. Which makes sense, as the beehive cannot run away from the attacker.