The Hymenoptera stinger evolved from the ovipoistor, which was used to inject eggs in hosts (Kasparyan 1998). This means that only female Hymenoptera can sting (Przybilla and Ruëff, 2010).

Bee stingers are barbed, while wasps have unbarbed stingers (Przybilla and Ruëff, 2010). Once the barb of a bee stinger is inserted, it cannot be withdrawn, a part of the bee’s abdomen is torn off with the stinger, and the bee dies. On the other hand, the wasp stinger contains two lancets that move independently to pierce the skin an create and increasingly deeper wound without injuring the organism (Berkov et al., 2008).

Although bees can only sting once, they release a considerable amount of venom with each sting, 50-140mg (Tracy, 2011; Krishna et al., 2011). Africanized honey bees, however, release a similar amount of venom, but are capable of stinging hundreds of times (Tracy, 2011). Similarly, other hymenoptera such as wasps are capable of stinging multiple times, but inject much less venom, only 2-17mg, with each sting (Krishna et al., 2011).

This website was made as part of a project for Animal Physiology class at Davidson College.