Do Queen Bees Have Stingers?

Let’s talk about the queen bee (and no, I’m not talking about Beyonce). When we think of bees, many think about one thing: hierarchy . Bee hives follow a very strict hive and colony structure. Briefly summed up, the operations of a hive are as follows:

The queen bee runs the hive.
The sterile worker bees work for the queen.
The drones have just one task… reproduction

A “buzy” queen

The queen does quite a bit to keep her hive together. She runs the hive, bosses the workers, and mates with the drones. Yet, there’s one thing you might have never wondered about the queen.

Does the queen bee have a stinger?

Yes! The queen bee does have a stinger! In fact, she has quite a unique stinger. Drones and workers have a barbed stinger that they embed into the body of whichever animal they sting. Queen bees, in contrast, have a stinger similar to wasps. They have a smooth stinger. This means that they can sting multiple times without (literally) risking tearing their bodies apart.

With a special stinger comes a special range of responsibilities

Worker bees use their stinger to protect against threats they encounter when they’re out foraging. In contrast, queen bees aren’t like workers. They don’t leave the hive to forage for nectar and pollen. They have just one primary responsibility, a responsibility that protects the hierarchy of the hive: reproduction and egg-laying.

(Fun Fact: Queens don’t even make honey!)

If not for protection in the wild, why would a queen need her stinger?

We already know that the queen has a special stinger, but why do they need a stinger different than that of workers?

Because queens aren’t protecting themselves against strange external threats. Queens rarely leave the hive to deal with that. What the queens are concerned with is other potential queens. Like a convoluted political mess, what queen bees fear is mutiny within the hive as opposed to danger from outside the hive.

Queens use their stingers to kill any nascent potential queens. Essentially, she will use her stinger on either virgin queens or mutinous workers that seek to displace her. This is because the hierarchy of a hive, as rigid as it is, is very fragile to maintain. A queen bee has a very low tolerance towards revolting workers, or even pupae still growing in the eggs!

Do queens sting humans?

Queens only exit the hive if they’re performing the nuptial flight or if they’re relocating to a new hive or colony. When they’re outside the hive, they’re still just concerned with one thing: mating!

The nuptial flight is an annual mating ritual that entices the queen and other drones to leave the colony and engage in mating. And when beekeepers relocate large hives or colonies, many report that the queens rarely, if ever, attack the keepers. The queens seem to tolerate the unfavorable interaction and rarely resort to using their stingers out of self-defense. So, don’t worry; if you see a queen outside the hive, stinging humans is one of the last things on her mind.