Steve Ash asked:

> What came first the social bee or the sting?
> i.e. Did stinged solitary bees evolve into social bees?
> or
> Did stingless social bees evolve into stinged bees?

I'm not sure that a dated set of preserved fossilized bees
has been found to document the exact developments, as
insects are not well preserved, except in amber and similar
materials.

I have read that the general consensus is that solitary,
stingless bees evolved into social, stinging bees.
I forget where.  Sorry.

Funny that you should mention it, the sting of the bee is
often trotted out as a creationist "argument" against
evolution, mostly because Darwin admitted to certain
uncertainties in the case of the bee sting.  You can
read what Darwin wrote here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/darwin/origin/oos6_6.htm

Another general-interest text that might be of interest would
be "The Blind Watchmaker", by Richard Dawkins.  As I
recall, he also addressed the bee stinger at some length.

I'm sure that there is lots of pontification about the social
implications of "altruism" inherent in the bee stinger, and
lots of speculation about the development of a defense
mechanism that entails a "suicide mission", but this is NOT
altruism, because "altruism" implies "choice", and bees
don't really have any "choice" in the matter.  They do what
they do as a classic example of stimulus-response.

Bees have no idea that stinging a soft object will cause their
stinger to "grab", and cause their own death.  Drones also
have no idea that mating will result in their death, any more
than a wind-up toy has any idea that it is heading for a wall.

The entire concept of altruism is an interesting one, once one
gets past adolescent treatments, like Ann Ryand's
"The Fountainhead".  Even humans react in unusual ways
to life-and-death decisions.  Here's an interesting study that
addressed humans, rather than bees:

http://www.princeton.edu/pr/news/01/q3/0914-brain.htm

In a nutshell, they were giving people two scenarios:

a) A runaway trolley is about to kill five people.
    Is it appropriate for you to throw a switch and derail
    the train, which it will kill the one occupant of the
    trolley, and save the five?

b) Same train.  Same 5 people about to die, but the only
    way to save the five people is for you to push a stranger
    next to you in front of the train, killing the stranger, but
    saving the five.  (I guess the runaway is empty this time).

Both cases are identical (one stranger dies, five live, for a
net gain of 4 lives), but most people will accept (a), but
not (b) as "appropriate".  I guess most people are willing to
"kill to save lives" when it is remote and impersonal, but not
so willing when it is up close and involves looking one's
victim in the eye.

Of course, one could reason that the occupant of train (a)
is going to die either way, and the choice is really 6 dead
vs. 5 dead, but the shrinks who run these tests never answer
this question.  One is left to "reason" with very limited data.

...but if nothing else, this may explain why people tend to
spread out as much as possible along the platform at
commuter train stations!

        jim