For most people, the image of a bee’s defense involves a painful sting, but the truth is that the world of bees includes species that rely on a completely different mechanism: biting. This behavior is often surprising to those familiar only with common honeybees or bumblebees. The defensive strategies within the order Hymenoptera are diverse, and many bees use their jaws for protection rather than a stinger. Understanding this difference reveals fascinating details about bee anatomy and social behavior and evolutionary adaptation.
Biting Versus Stinging
A bee’s sting and a bite represent two distinct anatomical features used for different purposes. The stinger, found only in female worker and queen bees, is a modified ovipositor, the egg-laying organ. When used in defense against a threat, the barbed stinger of the common Western honeybee often lodges in the skin and tears away from the bee’s body, resulting in the bee’s death. This act of colony defense involves injecting venom, or apitoxin, which causes pain and swelling.
The bee’s bite is delivered using its mandibles, the paired, movable jaws located on the front of the head. Mandibles are all-purpose tools for bees, and their use in defense does not result in the bee’s death. Unlike a sting, a bite may not always break the skin or inject venom into a large animal. The mandibles swing inward and outward like pincers, allowing the bee to grasp, cut, and manipulate materials.
Specific Bees Known to Bite
The group of bees that uses biting as its main defense mechanism is the tribe Meliponini, commonly known as stingless bees. This large group includes over 500 species found throughout tropical and subtropical regions worldwide. Stingless bees possess a highly reduced, vestigial stinger that is non-functional for defense.
Since they cannot sting, these bees rely entirely on their mandibles to protect their nests, and some species can deliver a surprisingly painful bite. Certain aggressive species, such as those in the genus Trigona, will swarm an intruder and latch onto the skin or hair. Some exhibit a form of suicidal defense where they remain attached and continue to bite, sometimes tearing off their wings to persist in the attack. A few species, such as Oxytrigona, enhance their bite by secreting an irritating chemical, like formic acid, from their mandibular glands, which can cause blisters on the skin.
Biting behavior is not exclusive to stingless bees, as even common honeybee workers (Apis mellifera) use their mandibles defensively against small pests. Workers bite and chew parasitic Varroa destructor mites to remove them from their bodies or brood cells. When biting these small arthropods, the honeybee worker secretes 2-heptanone from its mandibles. This chemical acts as a localized anesthetic, temporarily paralyzing the mite so the bee can remove the pest from the hive.
The Purpose of a Bee’s Bite
Beyond defense, mandibles serve various utilitarian functions essential for colony maintenance. Worker bees use them for structural tasks, including manipulating wax flakes to build comb cells or kneading propolis to seal cracks and stabilize the nest structure.
The mandibles are also crucial for hygiene and housekeeping within the colony. Newly emerged bees use them to chew their way out of capped brood cells. Older workers constantly use their jaws to clean cells, removing debris and polishing the interior walls. Nurse bees use their mandibles to transport and dispense food to the larvae. In all these actions, the bee’s bite is not an attack, but a precise biological tool.