“Honey bees die after stinging once”

Many people have heard that a honey bee perishes after it stings, a belief often reinforced by personal experience or stories. This common understanding isn't entirely false, but it's also not the complete picture. The truth behind a honey bee's sting depends significantly on who or what is on the receiving end.

The reason a honey bee typically dies after stinging a human or other mammal lies in its unique anatomy. Unlike wasps, a honey bee's stinger is barbed, much like a fishhook. When it embeds this barbed stinger into the thick, elastic skin of a mammal, the barbs catch, making it impossible for the bee to pull the stinger back out. As the bee attempts to free itself, the stinger, along with part of its digestive tract, muscles, and nerve ganglia, is ripped from its abdomen, an injury that is fatal to the bee. This evolutionary adaptation serves as a potent defense mechanism for the colony, ensuring the venom (Review) sac continues to pump venom even after the bee has flown away.

However, this isn't the case when a honey bee stings another insect. When stinging an insect opponent, such as a rival bee or a predatory wasp, the bee's barbed stinger can usually be withdrawn without the bee suffering a fatal injury. The exoskeletons of insects are different from mammalian skin, allowing the stinger to be pulled out more easily. Therefore, a honey bee can, in fact, sting another insect multiple times and survive.

The widespread belief that honey bees always die after stinging likely originates from our human-centric perspective. Most direct encounters with honey bee stings involve humans or pets, where the fatal outcome for the bee is consistently observed. This leads to the understandable, though incomplete, conclusion that a single sting is always a death sentence for the honey bee, overlooking their different interactions within the insect world.