Most people have a childhood memory of being bitten or stung by something, I personally have a vivid recollection of a wasp sting, I was about 5 years old and the wasp looked pretty - and then it hurt!

Yep, over 30 years later I can still remember how little I enjoyed being stung by the little yellow assailant.

So, in an attempt to help everyone better understand what's happening when you get stung lets have a look at their weapon of choice and how it works.

The image below shows a bee sting and a word to the wise, if you get stung the bee will leave this thing sticking out of you - pull it out as quickly as possible (the longer it's in the more venom will be introduced into the wound - upto 1 mg)

Lets consider why a bee would sting you in the first place.

There are times of the year when bees are naturally a little less tolerant of pretty much anything than others, for example in the late Summer/Autumn or early Spring when food resources are at their lowest.

There's also the threat factor, lets consider a really stupid example - you take the lid of a bee hive (I'm assuming curiosity) - the bees might well assume that you are attacking the hive and therefore defend it accordingly.

Another reason why a bee might sting you is down to the little know fact that bees don't like adrenalin. When you're exited/scared you create adrenalin which is pumped around your body and is also excreted from the pores in your skin, they can taste/smell it and it causes them to attack.

The final reason to consider is perhaps more cryptic then the others - because of the breed of bee.
There are several underlying types of bee, the Swiss bee for example which originates from eastern Europe, the British bee (which is not actually a pure breed but a mix of the French black bee and another European breed) or the Russian Blue (there are other types of bee, each of which has a proper name - I'll discuss the origins of the breeds in a separate article).
Each of the breeds has it's own characteristics, some are more disease resistant than others, whilst others might have a steeper breeding curve - and others are more aggressive (think Africanized bees).

So what actually happens when a bee stings?

Well the first thing that happens is that the bee is committing suicide.

When the bee stings you and then leaves it is actually leaving a chunk of its internal organs with you. Unlike a wasp the bee can sting only once.

The bee sting is a wonderfully crafted mechanism as shown in the illustration below:

It should also be noted that only the female bee has a sting, the male bee has reproductive organs instead and the queen has fully formed reproductive organs.

From the above image it is possible to see that the sting is actually barbed, so when it goes in it stays in.
The design of the barb is such that the two pieces slide across each other effectively causing a sucking mechanism on the bees’ internal glands.

So what is the Bee actually injecting you with?

When we actually consider the bee venom in terms of chemistry we see that it is a clear, bitter solution (not sure who tasted it in order to know that) and has a ph of between 4.5 and 5.5 (which makes it an acid).

It's also a mixture of proteins and behaves as an anticoagulant (a substance that stops other substances from bonding - like blood for example), it is also comparable to a snake venom - although I'm guessing that a snake bite is a little more disturbing then a Bee sting.