Q. Why don’t drones sting?
A. Only female insects sting. This is because the sting has evolved from the ovipositor, which lays eggs. We can see this today in parasitoid wasps where she lays an egg inside an immobilised host which the young wasp consumes as it develops. The sting of the honey bee has moved on to become a defensive tool and even the queen doesn’t use her sting to lay eggs. So, the males never evolved the hardware to sting.
Ken Brown is an Apiculture Land Based Training tutor, Vice President of the Auckland Beekeepers Club and a keen hobbyist beekeeper.
Drone. Photo: USGS Bee Inventory,