No One Is Afraid Of Bees
Blume Honey Water wants you to know: no one is afraid of bees!
No one is actually afraid of bees...but there are some people who are afraid of the pain a bee could inflict with their stinger. Rightly so! So their fear is actually the fear of pain. You may have heard people say, “Dogs and bees sense fear,” and while that is true, the details are surprising. Fear itself does not have a scent, but the pheromones produced when an animal or a person is afraid DO have a scent.
Science is so amazing! These pheromones are chemicals emittedby all animals in bodily fluids, such as sweat. These chemicals send signals to other animals of the same species with important information. They may indicate territory, aggression or an interest in reproduction.
But we don’t actually experience these informational scents in the same way we smell a fresh-baked loaf of bread or a campfire. We detect those types of scents through our main olfactory system, but pheromones are registered through our accessory olfactory systems.
Treehugger’s interview with Penn State scientists explains accessory olfactory systems this way: Communication in this system begins in a nasal organ located above the soft palate of the mouth, on the floor of the nasal cavity. Highly specific smell molecules detected by this organ are transmitted to the accessory olfactory bulb where they are collected and processed. Nerves from both the accessory and the main olfactory bulbs project to the limbic system, the part of the brain that deals with emotional perception and response.
In short: our limbic system is some kind of amazing system.
But back to bees...staying calm around them can help stave off the production of the fear pheromones in our bodies. It also helps to get clear about the root of fear (pain) and the reactions bees make when they smell a human’s fear: the sting to protect and save the lives of their families.
TOP REASONS BEES STING
Honeybees sting when they feel threatened, so respect them by keeping your distance, staying calm and never disturbing a hive or colony.
Bees sting to:
Defend their colony (all 15,000-60,000 of them!).
Protect their hive (it’s their house, afterall).
Protect their pollen sources (it’s their food!).
Join the swarm. If bees are alerted by other agitated and stinging bees, they will become more defensive when smelling those pheromones and then simply reacting.
Have mean fun. Just kidding...anything that stings for fun is either a wasp or a hornet. Those aren’t bees.
Finally, respect the mighty honey bee. They make the world go round, of course, by pollinating our much-needed food sources. And remember: in a traditional honey bee hive, the bees who do the stinging are the female worker bees. Male bees (or drones) don’t even have stingers since their primary role is to mate with a fertile queen. The queens, like all the females, have stingers, too, but they rarely leave their royal duties in the hive to ever have to use them.
Don’t fear the sweet bee.