can bumble bees sting (a bit) and survive?

[bikermike]

I was clearing a bit of the plot yesterday including some flowers that the bees were going mad on. To give them a bit more time, I left the pulled-up bits until last to clear up.

As I cleared them up, I was (ironically) distracted by a bee that was walking, not flying, so we put a flower by it, and it had a good feed and flew off. As I did that, I nearly put my hand on another bee. I got a sharp stinging feel at a point in my hand, and there was a cross-looking bee that was shaking.

we gave it a flower too, it had a bit of a feed and flew off. Was I stung by it, or by something else. no obvious nettles or the like there.

There was a small puncture-type mark on my hand, but no sting sticking out. Also, I tend to react a bit to nettle stings, but no such reaction noted.

[Mitzi]

If it didn't leave the sting in your hand then it probably withdrew it and will be fine.

[Snoop Puss]

https://www.biobestgroup.com/en/biob...2/stings-6681/

[Jay-ell]

If I remember correctly honey bees have barbed stings which lodge in the skin and are torn out of the bee continuing to pump the toxin. This is because a single honey bee is one of thousands in a hive and the prolonged stinging is advantageous to the hive as a whole, but not the the now dying bee.

Wasps, Bumble bees and solitary bees have straight stingers as they are either solitary or the number of individuals in a colony is small so the death of an individual bee would have a greater impact.

[Madasafish]

Tree bumbles can and do sting several times..and their sting contains venom. Bombus hypnorum came from France in the 1990s...They can be very defensive of their nests..

Don't ask me how I know..