"Honey bees die after stinging.
The "stinger" is an undeveloped sex organ. Worker bees are undeveloped females, who will develop no further. In the fully developed female or queen bee the stinger is the ovipositor (egg depositing tube) connected to her ovaries, it's just a smooth sharp tube. In the fully developed male, or drone, it's the equivalent of a penis, but it's not smooth it has barbs on it and after he mates the barbs hang up in the queen and it gets ripped out of his body, family jewels and all. He dies from the injury, the queen absorbs his "testicles" and they become part of her body, she never has to mate again. In the workers the tube is also barbed, it's connected to poison glands that would be ovaries if she was sexually matured. When she stings the barbs cause the stinger, glands and all, to be ripped from her body, she dies from the injury."
-notmrjohn - top answer to question 'Do bees die after stinging?'



Shit. I knew about the "only breed once" and "stingers ripped out" and "workers are undeveloped females" but this is terror-out-of-space type crazy. Sci-fi alien surreal. The kind of thing they write about in horror stories about hive-minds or biological experiments gone horribly wrong. This is insane comic-book power-stealing collector-type villain shit.


Ladies, I am keeping my family jewels. As a consolation prize, my penis is not barbed. This is a fair trade.