MH>From: Mason Harris <[log in to unmask]>
  >Date:         Mon, 6 May 1996 14:26:30 -0400
  >Subject:      Stingers
 
MH>Simple question.
 
MH> Does anyone have any ideas on why queens develop with a barbless stinger an
  >workers have barbed stingers?
 
Hi Mason,
 
Have no idea other then it's that way to insure they are not killed or
damaged when defending themselves for other queens or what ever. God
engineered our beloved honeybees and now some other's are working to
undo that by having workers with split tails, sounds more like the
devil's work more then bee science to me.<G>
 
The queens can sting, in working with queens normally late in the day
after a "catcher" has handled many queens and maybe killed a few
bad or nature queens it is not uncommon to get stung by a queen. I have
been stung a few times in the fingers when pushing them through those
smaller and smaller holes in queen cages. At least as I get older they
seem to be getting smaller. Another time after a 3 o'clock brake for a
cool one with a queen rearing friend who on the last round lets his baby
nuc's rear a nature queen and because it was an unusual early summer
with cooler then normal temperatures he got a very good take on mated
queens. We were catching them out for the fun of it and he had to leave
to get more cages. I was bored and kept on catching and just stored the
queens in my mouth, not unusual, or maybe not the norm, anyway after I
got quite a few in my mouth they got to fighting between themselves and
I got stung several times inside the lips and on the gums. Just about
the time I was going to spit them out my buddy returned with the cages.
Yes, it did hurt a little but I survived without injuring any queens and
I did not swallow any of them or do that trick any more that day.
 
                          ttul Andy-