Why should it be that bees die when they sting things?

Question

Are there any bees that can sting more than one time?
Why should it be that bees die after stinging- does it confer an advantage to the hive in some way?

Answer 1

My old biology teacher told us bees can sting another insect repeatedly because their skin is made of a different material than our skin. Our skin swells up and that makes it impossible to retract the stinger and the bees innards come out .

Answer 2

In general, bees die because when they sting because they leave too much of their guts behind with the barbed weapon. The venom sac works as a marker, as does the higher pitched noise made by the bee. when about to sting or when dieing, thus alerting other bees to the danger to the hive. Hence if stung by a bee, you should always kill it immediately and remove the sting from your body, otherwise its "mates" are gonna be around to see what the problem is.
Bees are one of the most noble of creatures, prepared to sacrifice themselves to protect their Queen. Their only concern is the well-being of the hive. They cannot survive without their sting.

Answer 3

They are prepared to die for Queen Family Offspring and Friends and habitat.. Another one is, did you ever hear someone saying a thing was the bees knees? Well the bees knees is where the carry all the pollen thus the bees knees. We could learn a lot from them rather then just harping on about the odd sting here and there. And I have only got about three stings in my life, and I am around a while, they were no big deal. They don't live long in any case.

Bees
However, the lifespan of individual bees is very short. Within the hive there
are three types of bee: the worker, the drone and the queen. ...
www.vegansociety.com/html/animals/exploitation/bees.php

Honey Bee Life Span
which eventually die, the honey bee colony really never dies! Well almost never -
in the winter, about 5% of colonies may expire


And one must think of the honey. Well worth an odd sting once in a while.

Answer 4

On the question on whether dying after stinging benefits the colony or not:

It benefits the colony to an extent because it assures them that, since the bee dies as soon as it stings, it would not be able to lead its victim back to the hive. This allows the bee (the stinger) to keep the victim (the stingee) from potentially dealing its revenge on the rest of the colony in the hive.

Answer 5

ALL BEES DIE AFTER STINGING ! only a wasp is capable of not dieing after stinging something or someone. Not ALL bees have a stinger though. The original purpose of the stingers for Wasps and Bees was to inject their eggs into an animal so they can breed better, but 'evolution' changed the bees to not do this. When a Bee stings, their Poison sack also gets torn out in the process. Imagine it the iquivilent of cutting your legs off !!! you will no doubt bleed to death, and just for reference all MALE Bees die after breeding too. Check out www.Howstuffworks.com for further good info

Answer 6

The stinger has small barbs that keep it in the victim. as the bee flys off the stinger rips out of its body. There are wasps and such that don't die after stinging and can sting repeatedly. I can't see where it would help the hive, unless having your stinger stay in place pumping venom is a more efficient way of protecting the hive.

Answer 7

Bees will normally only sting if their colony is at risk. Their sting is barbed so that it stays in the skin, any attempt to remove it often results in a second dose of venom.
The venom sack also gives off a pheromone telling other bees there is a danger to the colony. If you are stung once and you are near a hive, the chances are you will be stung again until you leave the vicinity.

Incidentally, people often think they are allergic to bee stings because they get a swelling. This is a normal reaction. If you are truly allergic, you will go into anaphylactic shock,

Answer 8

the honey bee can sting more than once, tho the sting is barbed and if used on a mammal does tear loose along with part of its abdomen (leading to a slow death). the sting was originally developed as a defence against other bee's so it can be used to protect the hive from an invasion of other species and the sting will retract from the chitinous Armour of the invader.
hope this answers your 'Q' ;)

Answer 9

bees are very protective of their queen and sniff out any bee that is a invader, they have a acute sense of smell and if a bee from their colony stings a predator when it arrived back the other bees would just kill it because of the scent of the thing it just stung would be on that bee ;also it lets off pheremones which alerts all the other bees and they will go into protect mode and attack anything near to the hive and its natures way of keeping the bee population down i suspect.

Answer 10

If a bee stings, the stinger comes out with part of the bees abdomen, that's why bees tend not to sting randomly, whereas wasps can sting as much as they want because their stinger stays intact.