A bee that traded its sting for something else
The stinger in a female honeybee is a modified egg-laying organ. Stingless bees, belonging to the tribe Meliponini, evolved along a different path. Their stinger is vestigial: present in structure, absent in function. They cannot pierce skin. What they kept instead is a set of mandibles strong enough to deliver a pinch if handled roughly, and a defensive strategy built around propolis, a sticky resin they smear at the colony entrance to trap intruders. A bee that cannot sting is not defenceless. It just defends differently.
