this post was submitted on 17 Sep 2024

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434

Bees (mander.xyz)

submitted 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago

This is just what they want you to believe

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (2 children)

I hope somebody can help me with this: could a bee theoretically evolve to have a stronger stinger so that stinging a human's skin multiple times would be possible?

If bees would evolve like other animals those who survive stinging humans would produce more offspring, but in this case only the queen produces offspring and the queen probably contact with human skin so this trait wouldn't be favoured by evolution. Or am I looking at this wrong?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

You also need to consider the overall health of the colony, since if the colony dies/gets outcompeted by other colonies, so will the queen

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

Thanks, that is a factor I hadn't thought of

[–] Trollception 2 points 1 month ago

Huh, this post has 2 examples of bees that can do that already.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Add dirt daubers to the list. They're my favorite. They build mud tunnels for their eggs and leave live paralyzed spiders in there for the babies to feed on when they hatch. They ignore humans.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

I saw these all the time as a kid, but I rarely do anymore. I still see other wasps somewhat often.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (4 children)

Wait, wasps are pollinators too?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

Yes, they are! They're into sweet nectar - that's why they also tend to visit our sweet drinks. The adults also sometimes search for bits of meat for the carnivorous larvae. In this mode they act like insect pest control.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

If the female wasp crawls into the caprifig, she can successfully lay her eggs and die. The males hatch first, mate with the females, dig tunnels out of the caprifig, and die. The females, now covered in fig pollen from the caprifig, fly out to begin the cycle again. If the female wasp crawls into a female fig, she will not be able to successfully lay her eggs despite pollinating the fig with pollen from the caprifig she hatched in. The fig will absorb her body and her eggs as the fruit develops.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reproductive_coevolution_in_Ficus

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

Looks like their entire life is fucking and then dying immediately after. Aight, they can have a pass. Mainly because I'll never see one in my life.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

There are a lot of different species which serve as pollinators besides bees. Afaik, some are more specialised into specific flowers/plants than others and without them, these plants wouldn't be able to reproduce. (Yucca moths for example.)

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Yeah. They usually pollinate my sweet toast in spring and my ham in late summer.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

Wasp nest in wall, specialist comes out, sucks them all out, sprays commercial insecticide into wall cavity. Wasps that were out of nest at the time come back and get confused and piss off, couple days later they're back and have found new unbefore seen holes to fly into, specialist tells me to buy trap and fill with meat. Buy canned ham and dump in trap. All wasps that came back are now in trap. Thanks Ham.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

Here in NZ most wasps are European Wasps which are an invasive species and are very destructive to the local ecosystem

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

Once I was spraying a hive of hornets. One of them collapses outside of the next and another flew grabbed him and pulled him back into the nest. Fucking broke my heart.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

In my limited experience I can confirm that at least some kinds of wasps are more than chill even directly near their nests.
Some are not even heavily interested in human food and in multiple occations they landed on my hands, cleaned their legs and flew away again.
In the last few years we had at least three nests within the roof of the house without an issue.

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