h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The thing that always gets me about bees (well at least the bees that I'm aware of) is that when they sting you, their stinger is often ripped out of their body and they die. Seems kind of excessive. Maybe it's an honour thing like Kamikaze pilots.

So the question must be asked; exactly HOW pissed off with somebody would you have to be before you decided to a) give them a small sting, and b) kill yourself?

Personally, I think it would be worth it on anyone who cuts me off on the motorway. But I think that might just be me.

Perhaps it's not so much a question of bees being over-zealous stingers, as much as bees underestimating the capacity of people to over-react and detach them, with a swipe, from a significant amount of their internal organs; while they're busy teaching us what, to them, seems a valuable lesson that a reasonable species would appreciate and respond to with a handshake.

BTW did you pass me on the drive home tonight?

JTG

Well you made it home, so I doubt it...

Actually you'd think bees, supposedly intelligent creatures (so far as be able to play "where's the honey?" charades can be regarded as intelligent) would have worked this out by now, and decided that we just weren't worth the effort.

Except those idiots who try to break world records by being covered in bees. Surely some sort of coordinated effort on the part of the bees could finish these people off for good?

Well maybe it's one of those "the queen knows better than I do so I listen to her" things. Also I agree with with your opinion on the stupid bee people. I mean, what if they are killer bees? lol

I wonder if any research has been done into the sort of people who become bee victims. Are they a type? They must be. Nobody I know has been stung by one... let alone thousands. It seems only fair. After all, if you're going to call a certain sort of bee "killers", when really all the bees are doing is protecting their bee interests in what must seem to them a clever and efficient way, then there ought to be a label for the sort of people who intrude on their affairs and become the real instigators of the bee-related hysteria.

JTG

I would imagine. Maybe a blood type? Sound of voice? Offensive haircut? I don't know what but it would be interesting to find out. Possibly the bees can smell high levels of a certain chemical in the body? But your right that would make alot of sense.

Death by stinging: honey bees have a barbed stinger, unlike wasps. This is no problem when attacking other insects, but with our tough, leathery skins (sorry ladies) the bee can only extract its sting by carefully unscrewing it - walking round and round - something we rarely give it time to do!

Bees aren't intelligent, they just have a very complex system of responses to stimuli, in particular to scents. Pheremones from the queen direct general behaviour in the hive, and an attack scent (sort of peardrops smell) signals other bees to join in. Certainly bees will home in on smelly clothing, in particular socks.