Why Do Bees Die After Stinging You? | COLOSSAL QUESTIONS

Lots of people say that a bee will die after stinging someone. But is that actually true? Do bees die after a sting? And if so, why? Let's find out on today's episode of Colossal Questions. There are all kinds of bees buzzing out there in the world. Bumblebees, honeybees, carpenter bees, yellow jackets, wasps, and hornets, just to name a few that you may have heard of. But it turns out that only one species of bee can actually die from stinging you, the honeybee. And it happens to them for a, well, kind of gruesome reason. You see, a honeybee's stinger is barfed and doesn't exactly stab, but screws into your flesh like a corkscrew, driving their whole stinger into your skin and injecting a venom called apitoxin. But this isn't some sort of strange last-ditch suicide sting. Honeybees can pull their stinger out of other insects and most other animals. But mammal skin is thick and made of tiny little fibers that tend to tangle up the barbs on the bee's stinger. When the bee tries to pull away after corkscrew stabbing you, its stinger gets caught in our skin, and it's ripped right out of the bee's abdomen as it tries to fly away. But even after accidentally killing itself, the bee isn't done doing damage. A bee stinger can keep shooting venom into your body for up to 10 minutes if you don't remove it. Sometimes, a honeybee will survive a stinging if the person being stung has thin skin that doesn't quite hold the barbed stinger in place. But since a honeybee's stinger is designed to dig as deep as possible, well, that doesn't tend to happen too often. In a honeybee hive, female worker bees are actually the only ones who can sting. In fact, male honeybees don't even have stingers. So do bees actually die when they sting you? Well, honeybees do. They just don't mean to. So if you see a bee buzzing about, it's best to just keep your distance and let it do its thing. You really don't want to get stung, and it's safe to assume the bees aren't looking to rip themselves apart either.