Honeybee stings are commonly associated with worker bees, whose barbed stingers remain embedded, leading to their demise. This raises questions about the queen bee: Does she possess a stinger, and how does she use it within the hive?
The Queen Bee’s Stinger
The queen bee possesses a stinger with distinct physical characteristics compared to a worker bee’s. Her stinger is smooth and slightly curved, with minimal barbs. This anatomical difference allows her to retract it without fatal damage, enabling her to sting multiple times. The stinger is a modified ovipositor, an organ found in female insects that was ancestrally used for egg-laying.
The Purpose of a Queen Bee’s Sting
The queen bee uses her stinger almost exclusively to eliminate rival queens. When new queen larvae develop, the first virgin queen to emerge seeks out and stings undeveloped competitors in their queen cells, ensuring her sole dominance. If two virgin queens emerge simultaneously, they will duel, stinging each other until only one remains.
Queen bees rarely sting humans or other perceived threats. Their primary role is reproduction, laying eggs to maintain the colony’s population. Worker bees defend the hive, making the queen’s defensive sting largely unnecessary. Beekeepers can often handle a queen bee without being stung, especially a fertile queen, whose enlarged abdomen can make stinging challenging.
Queen Stings Versus Worker Stings
A clear contrast exists between the sting of a queen bee and that of a worker bee, reflecting their differing roles in the colony. This structural difference dictates the outcome of a sting. The queen’s smooth stinger allows her to withdraw it from the victim, enabling her to sting repeatedly and survive. Conversely, a worker bee’s barbed stinger typically lodges in the skin of a mammal, tearing away from her body along with internal organs, which results in her death. The primary target also differs; the queen bee directs her sting at other queens, while worker bees sting to defend the hive against external threats like predators or humans.
Although the basic components of venom are similar between queens and workers, there are qualitative and quantitative variations. Queen bee venom, for instance, may lack some toxins found in worker bee venom, while containing others like serine proteinase stubble and antithrombin-III. The protein concentration of a queen’s venom is highest immediately following her emergence, diminishing as she ages.