bees

[cliffsdoll]

why do bees sting when they know they will die for it, my hubby said if you leave them alone they won'hurt you, but that's not true cos lasy year i was sat in the garden minding my own business when a bee stung me on the stomach.

[Clanad]

It's important to understand as well, that the honey bees don't "know" they will die when they sting... it's purely instinct.

[woofgang]

I like bumblies too. In the spring when they first wake, I put drops of honey on paper in my greenhouse. They come and feed, you can see the tongue come out and suck up the honey its amazing

[Romeo]

Bees are not intelligent enough to think about the consequences of their actions. They sting through instinct, not conscious decision, usually in reaction to a stimulus but sometimes even if unprovoked. Basically, they're stupid. Simple as that.

[CheekyChops]

Aawwww I hate bees, just in case they sting me (********). 

But reading the above posts, I actually feel sorry for them now!!

[pixi]

This may sound daft but i regularly pick up bumble bees when they are in the house to take them outside. They sit on the palm of my hand and even if i touch them they dont sting me.  They are sooooo sweet.   Never tried it with honey bees though.  Spiders on the other hand i remove them with the vacuum cleaner :)

[Narolines]

I gather that of all the species of bee in the UK (I don't know exactly how many that is, but it must be a fair few) only honey bees die as a result of stinging, and all the others can sting you again and again.......in fact apparently more species of wasp die after stinging than bees.  Personally I've only ever been stung by a bee once, and that was when I knelt down (wearing shorts) and trapped the little chap behind my knee, and he wasn't too impressed.  We get loads of bees of various sorts in the garden and by and large they're peaceable characters. Been stung a few times by wasps, though - they're a different proposition altogether.......

[littleoldme]

You can't expect bumble bees to work out whether they may die after stinging - after all, they're not even clever enough to realise that they can't fly! :-) Bumble bees are cool, though.

Honey bees are OK too, but don't get me started on wasps. They sting just for a laugh. If they could work mobile camera phones, they'd record their attacks as "happy stinging" - truly the chavs of the insect world.

[WaldoMcFroog]

The notion that bee's shouldn't be able to fly has been thoroughly debunked, littleoldme!

The "science has proved that bees can't fly" urban myth originated in a 1934 book by entomologist Antoine Magnan, who discussed a mathematical equation by Andre Sainte-Lague, an engineer. The equation proved that the maximum lift for an aircraft's wings could not be achieved at equivalent speeds of a bee. I.e., an airplane the size of a bee, moving as slowly as a bee, could not fly. Although this did not mean a bee can't fly (which after all does not have stationary wings like the posited teency aircraft), nevertheless the idea that Magnan's book said bees oughtn't be able to fly began to spread.

[brachiopod]

"Happy Stinging"

Ha ha ha !! Nice one, littleoldme, I like it !!