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A jaw-dropping closeup catches the exact moment a kamikaze honeybee rips away its own stinger, leaving the barb behind to keep pumping venom while the doomed insect flies off to die.
The high-speed videography that used 100 and 300 frames per second (fps) film, reveals how the insect’s tiny, barbed harpoon burrows into flesh while miniature pumps deliver a steady stream of venom.
Scientists from Macquarie University in Australia set up their research footage by having a honeybee sting a clear gel that mimics human flesh so they could see — for the first time — how the intricate internal machinery keeps operating even after the insect has flown away.
Their findings were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“We’ve known since as early as 1910 that the venom sac of a honeybee stinger empties into a chamber with little pumping elements called valves, but until now we didn’t know exactly how they work,” said study lead Fiorella Ramirez Esquivel, an entomologist at Macquarie University in Australia.
“If you’ve ever been stung by a bee, you’ll know it’s a very painful process, but now we’ve been able to identify all the working parts packed into the tiny stinger.”
Unlike an ordinary needle, a honeybee’s tiny 2 millimeter-long stinger comes equipped with two rows of tiny, saw-tooth blades called lancets, armed with barbs that face outward like a harpoon or a fishhook.
Each of the lancets has a valve attached that sits inside the pumping chamber. The blades work alternately on a system of rails, grabbing flesh and pulling the stinger deeper into the skin.
A tiny pumping machine helps drive the process, while a venom sac supplies the chemical cocktail.
“The unique geometry of the valves is the key; they act as collapsible pistons and – by pumping in opposite directions – they’re able to deliver a continuous flow of venom,” said Ramirez-Esquivel.
When the bee flies away, the stinger keeps working autonomously.
The bee typically dies within minutes to hours from fluid loss and nervous system failure, while its stinger remains embedded and continues delivering venom.
Wasps, hornets, honeybee queens, bumblebees and carpenter bees all have smooth stingers so they can attack an unlimited number of times.
Worker bees are the only honeybees equipped with the unique stinging apparatus. There are roughly 60,000 of them in each hive with one mission — to protect their Queen at any cost.
The scientists noted the bee’s biological design mechanism could provide important knowledge for future medical devices like insulin pumps based on the same principals.