Why a honeybee dies when it stings you
A worker honeybee's barbed sting catches in skin like ours and tears out of her body; the wound usually kills her hours or days later. The piece she leaves behind keeps pumping venom on its own: two blades take turns, each with a flexible flap that works like a piston. Biologists explain why evolution allows such a costly weapon with kin selection. For you, speed matters more than method: in a 1996 study, pinching the sting out worked about as well as scraping.
- 0:00 The piece keeps working
- 0:17 Two barbed blades
- 0:26 Skin versus shell
- 0:37 Why she tears
- 0:47 The double-piston pump
- 1:19 Banana alarm scent
- 1:27 Kin selection
- 1:53 Get it out fast