Title: Bee Stings - how honey bees and bumblebees sting
Headings: Bee Sting
Bee Sting
Bee stings – how honey bees and bumblebees sting
Technical Stuff – with thanks to Thor Lehnert of Bioenvironmental Bee Laboratory, Beltsville, Md. 20705
All about bee stings!
Good and Bad News!
The Threat of the “Killer Bees”

Content: The pain experienced after being stung may well be the result of these last three actions. For many years, formic acid erroneously was believed to be the major component of venom produced by the honey bee, and this belief is still held by many. The action of venom is much more complex than the simple concept of direct action on the tissue by formic acid. Good and Bad News! The good news is that bees are generally not as aggressive as wasps and hornets, though the spread of the Africanised honey bee in North America has meant that this generally more aggressive version of the “bee” has inflicted more stings than was the case say 30 years ago. The bad news is that bee stings appears to contain more proteins than wasp venom and therefore there is a great likelihood of being allergic to bees than wasps! Once certain species of bees have inserted their stinger, the bees are unable to pull it out (using a similar principle to a fish hook which is easy to get into flesh but difficult to pull out). The bee literally tears itself away leaving the sting still connected to the venom sac which continues to pump venom into the victim for up to a minute from the time of insertion. The need for a bee sting to be removed as soon as possible is therefore evident! The poor old bee meanwhile has left part of its body behind and dies as a result.