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Why do bees die when they sting you? (2021)

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Re: Why do bees die when they sting you? (2021)

#41

Post by jovial_cavalier »

>Thirdly, the haplodiploidy hypothesis only works if all sisters share the same father and if a queen is biased to produce more daughters than sons.

The sex ratio doesn't actually seem like a problem for the theory, because it sounds like for a worker bee, the relatedness of the marginal sibling is 5/8 in expectation, vs. 1/2 relatedness of the marginal offspring.

I think you also have to discount the relatedness into the future. If the colony you are born into is already established, your 5/8 related marginal sibling has a much higher likelihood of survival than your 1/2 related marginal offspring when you take into account the risk of breaking from the colony and starting your own.

That probably goes some way to explaining the first problem of multiple fathers. Marginal half-siblings are only 1/4 related to the worker, but they may have a greater chance of survival.

Re: Why do bees die when they sting you? (2021)

#42

Post by penteract »

gus_massa wrote: post #18
tibbon wrote: post #2

The group selection part is really interesting evolution-wise. It seems a very slow and difficult method of selection. I had never considered how something dying, and not passing along their genetics, could enforce a genetic trait.

It's somewhat explained near the end of the article. Sex in bees (and ants) is weird. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex-determination_system Humans use XY system, so we share 50% of your genes with your children, parents and siblings (in average). Bees and ants use X0 system. A female bee share 50% of your genes with their own daughters, 75% with their mother and 75% with their female parents and 75% with their femal…

Your conclusion is right, but in bees, sex is determined by Haplodiploidy ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplodiploidy ), not X0. Also, the daughters have the same number of chromosomes as the mother so they share 50%, not 75% of their genes with their mother (they do share an average of 75% of their genes with their sisters).

Re: Why do bees die when they sting you? (2021)

#43

Post by _1tem »

I don't understand why any "why" question in evolutionary biology is ever satisfied with a "survival of the fittest" truism. Any evolutionary explanation you give me is also falsified by the existence of another species with a different/opposite trait. Whatever explanation you give for a bee's barbed stinger is falsified by the wasp's non-barbed one. Also doesn't answer other questions, such as why didn't bees evolve a type of barbed stinger that doesn't rip their guts out and kill them? Or why do they even need a stinger at all, as many insects don't have one?

Evolutionary explanations like these for "why" things are the way they are not just pure idle speculation, but they are also often unprovable, unfalsifiable, and have the same circular logic as bad religion. Why do species survive? Because they were the fittest, because they survived. But why?

Re: Why do bees die when they sting you? (2021)

#44

Post by pfdietz »

meindnoch wrote: post #30
pfdietz wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s because ultimately the species survives, not the individuals. No, this is wrong. "Survival of the species" isn't a basis for selection. It will not lead to a gene becoming more prevalent in a population of interbreeding individuals. Bees sacrifice themselves because they share genes with the queen; genes that are involved in this sacrifice increase their relative abundance in the bee gene pool by increasing th…

>"Survival of the species" isn't a basis for selection. It will not lead to a gene becoming more prevalent in a population of interbreeding individuals. Well, "species" is but a loosely defined set of genes.

And group selection cannot increase the frequency of a gene in that collection.

Re: Why do bees die when they sting you? (2021)

#45

Post by yieldcrv »

this is wild because the article starts off with explaining how "why" is a bad question, and then doubles down on this entire thesis explaining why a bee dies when it stings you, a human, and the evolutionary nature supporting it

except, its entirely wrong and the foreshadowing about "why" was super important: bees don't 'expect' to die when they sting you. they can sting many creatures and not get their abdomen ripped out because the barb doesn't get stuck in the thing they stung. just like wasps.

so this 20 page dissertation is completely baseless.

Re: Why do bees die when they sting you? (2021)

#46

Post by sedatk »

_1tem wrote: post #43

I don't understand why any "why" question in evolutionary biology is ever satisfied with a "survival of the fittest" truism. Any evolutionary explanation you give me is also falsified by the existence of another species with a different/opposite trait. Whatever explanation you give for a bee's barbed stinger is falsified by the wasp's non-barbed one. Also doesn't answer other questions, such as why didn't bees evolve…

Wasps and bees have different ecological constraints with different risks involved. There is no contradiction here. They evolved as the fittest in their own constraint set. If bees weren’t fit enough, they would have gone extinct and replaced by bees with non-barbed stingers. There is no magic that makes them survive.

Evolution doesn’t have any goals or agenda. That’s why whales still have vestigial hip bones despite having no hips whatsoever. Because it’s not a significant parameter in their survival. Same with barbed stingers of bees.

Re: Why do bees die when they sting you? (2021)

#47

Post by RangerScience »

_1tem wrote: post #43

I don't understand why any "why" question in evolutionary biology is ever satisfied with a "survival of the fittest" truism. Any evolutionary explanation you give me is also falsified by the existence of another species with a different/opposite trait. Whatever explanation you give for a bee's barbed stinger is falsified by the wasp's non-barbed one. Also doesn't answer other questions, such as why didn't bees evolve…

Survival of the fittest is the flawed quote, usually used by those with supremacist conceptual frameworks (that there can be an objective “better”, etc). This shows up a lot in fiction, where the quote is used as justification for cruelty, atrocities, and the like.

IMHO, the much better quote is:

> It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.

See https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/people/about-darwin/six-thin...

Re: Why do bees die when they sting you? (2021)

#48

Post by FartyMcFarter »

caseyohara wrote: post #11
hbn wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think about how most people are naturally scared of heights, or snakes. A lot of dogs get freaked out by snakes too, or if you play with a hair clip in front of them, which looks like a snake. The ones that aren't afraid of those things are more likely to die from falling off a cliff or being injected with venom. I'm personally someone who is freaked out heavily by insects. I know logically a house centipede or a har…

> A lot of dogs get freaked out by snakes too, or if you play with a hair clip in front of them, which looks like a snake. Some cats are afraid of cucumbers, presumably because the shape and color resembles a snake. Here’s a funny compilation: https://youtu.be/oDpQ2uGLUKU

> Some cats are afraid of cucumbers, presumably because the shape and color resembles a snake. Here’s a funny compilation: https://youtu.be/oDpQ2uGLUKU

It's funny in a way, but if you think about it it's actually abusive.

Would you think it's funny if you were terrified of snakes and someone randomly put a fake snake next to you when you were just relaxing?

Re: Why do bees die when they sting you? (2021)

#49

Post by notRobot »

_1tem wrote: post #43

I don't understand why any "why" question in evolutionary biology is ever satisfied with a "survival of the fittest" truism. Any evolutionary explanation you give me is also falsified by the existence of another species with a different/opposite trait. Whatever explanation you give for a bee's barbed stinger is falsified by the wasp's non-barbed one. Also doesn't answer other questions, such as why didn't bees evolve…

Here's an explanation of how this works:

All creatures are very complicated. Thus reproduction doesn't produce perfect clones, "mutations" take place. This is largely because there are so many different ways to derive one individual out of two individuals' complex genitic material. This is all a feature. This is why individuals have unique characteristics. Think about how different humans are from each other, even though we're all humans. This same thing applies to all creatures. Every individual is different. Those who have "disabilities" (disadvantages in their context) are less likely to survive. So those with advantageous traits survive and pass their traits on through reproduction, making those specific traits more prevalent.

The answer to "why didn't x evolve to do y?" is usually just that that specific mutation might have never occurred or caught on randomly. This is also why different species do different things differently. It's all random mutations. Some were beneficial in their context and environment so those who had them were more likely to survive and pass those traits along.

It's not that "the objective of life is to survive" in a spiritual sense, it's that life randomly happens and some of it survives and it makes more life like itself. In some ways, I suppose the purpose of life is to create more life. Systems that replicate themselves successfully survive. We call these "life". It's really a linguistics thing.

Hope some of this makes sense. I enjoyed thinking about this.

Re: Why do bees die when they sting you? (2021)

#50

Post by hinkley »

lysace wrote: post #35

A random bee sting in class was the straw that broke my back in a mid 90s multivariable calculus lecture at a Swedish university where I was studying CS/EE. It lead to me dropping out. Went to a local internet/web software startup instead and a whole new world opened up. Yes, I had been behind. I'm doing OK now :)

As an easily distracted high schooler just trying to enjoy one of his favorite classes, I discovered I could swat a flying bee dead with my folder. They were getting in through some gap in a window facing an alcove an I think we had four or five one year before Facilities fixed the problem.

It worked out, but you don’t really want to go squishing bees in an open area since they release chemicals that put their siblings on alert. If they stay put a glass and a piece of stiff paper are a better solution. But these were buzzing around my fellow students making everyone freak out.

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