THE STING
We have now only the sting left to consider. I need not tell you what
it feels like to be stung, as no doubt a good many of you have had that
interesting operation performed upon you by some bee or wasp which you
have annoyed!
How very frightened every one is of the sting of a bee, and those
people who have never been stung are perhaps the most frightened of
all. After all, the sting is not so painful, and it is very interesting
to watch the angry little worker drive its sharp weapon into our hand;
besides which it is actually good for us to be stung, and the reason of
this I shall presently tell you. The sting is situated at the very tip
of the abdomen. It would take up too much space to fully describe all
the details of its construction, and therefore I shall simply tell you
about the chief parts, and also how it works.
Let us look at the picture of a sting given on (_a_) Plate XIII., where
is seen a sharp-pointed object surrounded by fleshy matter. This is
the sting proper, and it is very smooth and hard, as well as being
finely pointed. In order to give you some idea of this, I have mounted
alongside a sting, one of the finest needles obtainable for comparison,
and you will see the picture in (_b_) Plate XI. The needle is at the
top, and looks like a great crowbar compared with the beautifully fine
and tapering sting.
This sting is really a sheath, or kind of case, in which are enclosed
two needle-like darts. Its purpose is to protect the darts and also to
make the actual wound. Outside the end of the sheath are two rows of
three, or sometimes more barbs, which point backwards. Many of you, no
doubt, have seen in our museums the spears and arrows used by savages,
which have ugly barbs at their points. When the warrior runs the spear
into an enemy, it does not slip out as it would do were the shaft just
a plain one. The barbs on the outside of the sheath are used for this
purpose, that is, to prevent the sheath from slipping out of the hole
it has pierced, until the operation of stinging is completed.
The darts enclosed in the sheath are capable of being moved up and
down in it, by a powerful and complicated set of muscles. They act
like drills, and when the sheath has made the first hole and, as it
were, opened the way for them, the darts commence to travel up and down
at a great rate. Every time they come down they go further into the
flesh, and so make the hole deeper. They, too, have barbs which are
more pronounced than those on the outside of the sheath, and so take a
firmer hold on the flesh. You will clearly see these barbs on one of
the darts in (_b_) Plate XIII.
The darts themselves are hollow, and near each barb there is a tiny
hole, which leads into the central hollow, down which the poison is
poured. The hole made by the sharp little darts is not deep enough to
cause the pain we feel when stung; this is due to the poison which is
sent into the wound. This poison consists chiefly of formic acid, and
is stored in the poison-bag which is shown on (_a_) Plate XIII. The
poison is forced through the holes by two little pumps situated at the
base of the sheath, and which are worked by the same muscles which move
the darts.
You will see from this that stinging is quite an elaborate process.
First the sharp point of the sheath enters the flesh and is held there
by its barbs. Then the darts work up and down, making the wound deeper
and deeper, while the tiny pumps are forcing in the poison. So quickly
does all this take place that the sheath is driven in up to the hilt
and the wound filled with poison, long before we have time to knock the
angry little insect away.
When a bee stings our arm or leg we naturally try to brush or shake it
off. We have seen that the sheath of the sting has barbs, and when we
shake our arm the sting is so fast in the flesh that the jerk causes it
to be pulled out by the roots from the bee’s body. When this occurs it
generally happens that a large part of the bee’s bowel is pulled out
also, and this causes the death of the bee in an hour or so. If we let
the bee alone, however, we shall find that after the darts have been
driven in as far as ever they will go, and after the full amount of
poison has been pumped in, she will commence to turn slowly round and
round, and in this manner will extract the sting, as a corkscrew is
taken out of a cork.
The sting of a worker is quite straight, but that of the queen is
curved like a scimitar. The workers sometimes sting bees from other
hives, but the queen will never sting any bee but a rival queen. The
sting of one bee is immediately fatal to another.