Do queens sting?

[Frantz]

Ok, I should know this by now I know. But I have been trying to get my queens marked and such lately. I was up getting one marked the other day and my wife came along and as I was carefully grabbing the queen she said " Won't she sting you?" and I did not have an answer for her. She is just a female bee right? Shouldn't she be able to sting?
Also, I have put a new frame in my ob hive that is one of my older drawn comb frames. The queen was running out of room to lay, so I gave the full brood frame to a weak hive that I have and dropped in the new one. Been a couple of days now, the bees are working it, starting to store nectar there and such, but she will not even walk on the upper frame yet. Any reason? Does it not smell right yet? Will it take a few days? Just wondering as she does not have anyplace to lay, the bottom frame is packed!!! So wondering.
Next question, the frame that I put in seems to have some old hard pollen in it. Will they recycle that? Maybe a 10th of the frame is hard packed old pollen it seems like, so I was just wondering if they can still use that? They don't seem to be trying to clean it out?
Thanks all
F

[rast]

 Answer to one question only, and this is only what I have read and been told. I do not have a microscope so I cannot verify this. Queens do not have barbs on their stinger, but they can sting, just usually don't except for killing other queens or if you are pinching them such as while trying to daub paint on them. I think I would too if you were trying to paint me.  :-D

[deejaycee]

Yes, she's physicallly capable of stinging.  No, it's very unlikley that she will.  The only cases of stinging queens I've heard of are when a beek is holding a queen and has already handled other queens, so has queen scent on his hands.  A queen won't come looking for you to sting like a guard will.

Her sting is also not nearly so barbed as a worker, so she may be able to sting you and withdraw the sting without damaging herself - she certainly can on objects harder than human skin.  Not that I'd want to risk losing a queen to ascertain that, mind you.

[Robo]

I've marked a bunch of queens and the way I do it by holding their legs puts them in perfect position to sting and often times I've expected it as they arch their abdomen against my finger.  But....  I've never been stung.  Bumblebee queens are a different story :shock:

[JP]

I am never even in the slightest, concerned that a queen will sting me, if she does one day, I'll relate the story.

I've only heard of one person being stung and he was removing and replacing queens in a bunch of hives and was 86ing the queens he didn't want and one wound up sticking him on the hand he was doing the killin' with.


...JP