Hello Matthew and All,
I was doing a post in answer to the bee sting question but my post looked like Matthews so maybe we were looking at the same reference book. I am puzzled by the below statement and am probably going to ask a dumb question but ask I will.
Matthew wrote:
Honey bees are the only ones that have a barbed stinger and thus are the=
only ones who die after stinging. Other bees have a smooth stinger and=
could sting repeatedly if they wanted.
All beekeepers know the above is true. My reference books say bees evolved from wasps. The question I ponder is why a worker bee stinger is barbed and the queen is not. The queen has a smooth stinger and could sting over and over though I have handled thousands of queens without an offer to sting. Does the diet of Royal Jelly change the sting from barbed to smooth? Would a slight increase in royal jelly create a worker with a smooth stinger? Is the worker honey bee stinger barbed because the worker ovipositor is not fully developed? Is the queen ovipositor smooth because with the correct diet her ovipositor is fully developed?
I guess I will survive not knowing the answers to the above questions but maybe others on the list might comment.
Sincerely,
Bob Harrison