Steve Ash inquired:

>To clarify an earlier post:

>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?

   Most of the female Hymenoptera (including our honey bees) have a sting,
a modified ovipositor.  Accordingly, the ancestors of stingless bees also
had such a structure.  That also explains why drones can't sting.

  Pages 150-156 of 1992 edition of THE HIVE AND THE HONEYBEE (Dadant &
Sons, Joe Graham editor) covers the topic quite well.

                                                                Adrian

Adrian M. Wenner                    (805) 963-8508 (home phone)
967 Garcia Road                     (805) 893-8062  (UCSB FAX)
Santa Barbara, CA  93106  [http://www.beesource.com/pov/wenner/index.htm]

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*    "However broad-minded one may be, he is always to some extent
*  the slave of his education and of his past."
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*                           Emile Duclaux (1896; 1920 translation)
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