Fear of bees

Last updated

Depiction of a beekeeper wearing protective equipment while handling bees Die Gartenlaube (1897) b 476 1.jpg
Depiction of a beekeeper wearing protective equipment while handling bees

The fear of bees, also known as apiophobia, apiphobia, or melissophobia, is a specific phobia triggered by the presence or apprehension of bees. It is a variation of entomophobia, a fear of insects. The phobia arises primarily from a fear of bee stings. Fear of bees often coincides with a fear of wasps, another stinging insect, and the two are sometimes conflated by people with bee phobias. A fear of bees can affect quality of life with anxiety around outdoor activities, and people with a bee phobia may experience symptoms of panic upon seeing a bee. Negative attitudes toward bees can also have negative effects on beekeeping and conservation efforts. Exposure therapy is an effective treatment for fear of bees and other specific phobias. Fear of bees may also occur in people who risk life-threatening reactions to stings, but this is considered a rational fear instead of a phobia.

Contents

Description

The fear of bees is called apiophobia, apiphobia, or melissophobia. The api- prefix comes from apis, the Latin word for 'bee', [1] and the melisso- prefix comes from μέλισσᾰmélissa, the Greek word for 'bee'. [2] The -phobia suffix comes from φόβοςphóbos, the Greek word for 'fear'. [1]

Bee phobias are diagnosed as animal-type specific phobia by the DSM-5, and they are related to entomophobia, a broader fear of insects. [1] It is especially related to the fear of wasps, [3] [4] and the two are often comorbid. [1] Bees are generally more well-liked than wasps by the public, in part because bees are more widely recognized as pollinators. [4] Black-and-yellow striped bees are the most well known in public consciousness, which can cause conflation between bees and wasps. As wasps are more aggressive than bees, this conflation has a negative effect on public perception of bees. [5] [6]

Causes

The anatomy of a bee's sting--fear of bees most commonly comes from a fear of being stung. Bee-sting BHL.svg
The anatomy of a bee's sting—fear of bees most commonly comes from a fear of being stung.

The fear of being stung is central to the fear of bees. [3] Experiencing a bee sting or knowing someone who has experienced one can increase a fear of bees. [7] [1] Conversely, individuals who have never been stung by a bee may believe that the stings are more dangerous than they truly are. [8] They may exaggerate the severity of a sting in their minds, with the exaggeration subsiding after experiencing a sting. [9] [10] Fear is also a common response to the buzzing sound of a bee. [3]

Fear of bees brings a greater evolutionary advantage than fears of other insects because they are venomous, and can cause life-threatening harm through anaphylaxis in some individuals. [11] As phobias are diagnoses of irrational fear, individuals who have life-threatening allergic reactions to bee stings are not considered apiphobic when experiencing a fear of bees related to their own safety. [8] Fear of bees is less common than fear of spiders, though humans are more likely to come into contact with bees relative to other widely-feared arthropods. Bees are more easy to find accidentally when they congregate as swarms, and individual bees are attracted to food that humans may be carrying. [11] Swarms especially can trigger panic, although bees do not typically sting while swarming. [12]

Africanized bees, a hybrid of the western honey bee and the East African lowland honey bee, are more dangerous than other bees and are more widely feared. Relative to other bees, they are more easily provoked and will chase humans over long distances. [13] Popular culture sensationalizes and exaggerates this danger, making fear more common. [8] Fear of Africanized bees in the United States can play on xenophobia, as they embody the concept of a threat emerging from Africa and traveling through Latin America. [14] Africanized bees are colloquially known as killer bees in North America and abejas bravas (transl. fierce bees) in South America. [15]

People with a fear of bees are less likely to be knowledgeable about bees, and they frequently overestimate the likelihood of a bee becoming aggressive or stinging. [16] People may be less likely to fear bumblebees relative to other bees, as they can be perceived as cuter and they are less likely to sting. [17] Fearing an insect for its sting is learned behavior rather than instinctive, [9] [18] and bee phobias most commonly develop in childhood. [1]

Effects

A sign warning people about the presence of bees Bee activity warning.jpg
A sign warning people about the presence of bees

Fear of bees can affect a person's ability to enjoy time spent outdoors. [7] People with a fear of bees may avoid outdoor activities, be distracted watching for bees when outdoors, or mistake other insects for bees. [19] Emotional distress, panic attacks, and urges to flee are common responses to bee sightings for people with bee phobias, and they may attempt to kill bees upon seeing them, making it more likely that they will be stung. [20] Since bees are attracted to flowers, the fear of flowers is most commonly associated with the fear of bees. [21] Being a specific phobia, exposure therapy is an effective treatment for bee phobias. [20]

Negative attitudes toward bees have a debilitating effect on conservation efforts. [5] Fear of bees also results in legal restrictions on beekeeping, especially in urban areas. [22] [23] Beekeepers are often forced to reconcile a fear of being stung. They may consider it to be a routine part of the job, derive self-confidence from the nature of their work, or consider it a form of affective labor. [24] Companies that sell honey have to take aversion to bees in consideration when marketing honey products, often avoiding the mention of bees in favor of other imagery. [25]

The fear of bees has been observed in African elephants, [26] and beehives have been proposed as a form of deterrent to prevent elephants from damaging vulnerable trees. [27]

In society

In African folklore, swarms of bees are seen as punishments sent by an enemy with the assistance of a witch doctor. A swarm of bees approaching one's home can alternatively be seen as a good omen or a bad omen. [28] The Ancient Chinese similarly knew feng (bees and wasps) for their stings and considered them bad omens. [29] After the advent of beekeeping, this view was replaced with one of bees as an example for nobility and Confucianism. [30] The Breton, Cornish, and Welsh words for bee (gwenanenn, gwenenen, and gwenyen, respectively) refer to its sting. [17]

News coverage of bees is mixed; while it has raised the issue of declining bee populations and promoted conservation, it also instills fear by describing deaths relating to bee stings. [6] The spread of Africanized bees to the United States caused a panic in the country beginning in the late 1970s. [31] This fear was exploited in the horror film The Swarm . [32]

See also

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Milosevic 2015, p. 26.
  2. ↑ "melissophobia". www.merriam-webster.com. Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Retrieved 2024-05-21.
  3. 1 2 3 Crane 1976, p. 15.
  4. 1 2 Sumner, Law & Cini 2018, p. 836.
  5. 1 2 Silva & Minor 2017, p. 20.
  6. 1 2 Wilson-Rich 2014, p. 206.
  7. 1 2 Wilson-Rich 2014, p. 207.
  8. 1 2 3 Milosevic 2015, p. 27.
  9. 1 2 Crane 1976, p. 16.
  10. ↑ Lockwood 2013, p. 134.
  11. 1 2 Gerdes, Uhl & Alpers 2009, p. 67.
  12. ↑ Moore & Kosut 2013, p. 146.
  13. ↑ Wilson-Rich 2014, pp. 206–207.
  14. ↑ Moore & Kosut 2013, p. 161.
  15. ↑ Moore & Kosut 2013, p. 163.
  16. ↑ Milosevic 2015, pp. 26–27.
  17. 1 2 Crane 1976, p. 17.
  18. ↑ Lockwood 2013, p. 35.
  19. ↑ Milosevic 2015, pp. 27–28.
  20. 1 2 Milosevic 2015, p. 28.
  21. ↑ Correia & Mammola 2023, p. 10.
  22. ↑ Wilson-Rich 2014, pp. 122–123.
  23. ↑ Moore & Kosut 2013, p. 5.
  24. ↑ Moore & Kosut 2013, pp. 119–120.
  25. ↑ Horn 2006, p. 170.
  26. ↑ Dror et al. 2020, pp. 355–356.
  27. ↑ Cook et al. 2018, p. 329.
  28. ↑ van Huis 2021, p. 2228.
  29. ↑ Pattinson 2019, p. 101.
  30. ↑ Pattinson 2019, pp. 116–117.
  31. ↑ Moore & Kosut 2013, pp. 161–162.
  32. ↑ Horn 2006, p. 202.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bee</span> Clade of insects

Bees are winged insects closely related to wasps and ants, known for their roles in pollination and, in the case of the best-known bee species, the western honey bee, for producing honey. Bees are a monophyletic lineage within the superfamily Apoidea. They are currently considered a clade, called Anthophila. There are over 20,000 known species of bees in seven recognized biological families. Some species – including honey bees, bumblebees, and stingless bees – live socially in colonies while most species (>90%) – including mason bees, carpenter bees, leafcutter bees, and sweat bees – are solitary.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Honey</span> Sweet and viscous substance made by bees mostly using nectar from flowers

Honey is a sweet and viscous substance made by several species of bees, the best-known of which are honey bees. Honey is made and stored to nourish bee colonies. Bees produce honey by gathering and then refining the sugary secretions of plants or the secretions of other insects, like the honeydew of aphids. This refinement takes place both within individual bees, through regurgitation and enzymatic activity, and during storage in the hive, through water evaporation that concentrates the honey's sugars until it is thick and viscous.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Honey bee</span> Colonial flying insect of genus Apis

A honey bee is a eusocial flying insect within the genus Apis of the bee clade, all native to mainland Afro-Eurasia. After bees spread naturally throughout Africa and Eurasia, humans became responsible for the current cosmopolitan distribution of honey bees, introducing multiple subspecies into South America, North America, and Australia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Africanized bee</span> Hybrid species of bee

The Africanized bee, also known as the Africanized honey bee (AHB) and colloquially as the "killer bee", is a hybrid of the western honey bee, produced originally by crossbreeding of the East African lowland honey bee (A. m. scutellata) with various European honey bee subspecies such as the Italian honey bee (A. m. ligustica) and the Iberian honey bee (A. m. iberiensis).

While observers can easily confuse common wasps and bees at a distance or without close observation, there are many different characteristics of large bees and wasps that can be used to identify them.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hornet</span> Genus of eusocial wasp

Hornets are the largest of the eusocial wasps, and are similar in appearance to yellowjackets, their close relatives. Some species can reach up to 5.5 cm (2.2 in) in length. They are distinguished from other vespine wasps by the relatively large top margin of the head. Worldwide, 22 species of Vespa are recognized. Most species only occur in the tropics of Asia, though the European hornet is widely distributed throughout Europe, Russia, North America, and north-eastern Asia. Wasps native to North America in the genus Dolichovespula are commonly referred to as hornets, but all of them are actually yellowjackets.

Beekeeping is the maintenance of bee colonies, commonly in artificial beehives. Honey bees in the genus Apis are the most commonly kept species but other honey producing bees such as Melipona stingless bees are also kept. Beekeepers keep bees to collect honey and other products of the hive: beeswax, propolis, bee pollen, and royal jelly. Other sources of beekeeping income include pollination of crops, raising queens, and production of package bees for sale. Bee hives are kept in an apiary or "bee yard".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stinger</span> Sharp organ capable of injecting venom

A stinger is a sharp organ found in various animals capable of injecting venom, usually by piercing the epidermis of another animal.

The fear of wasps, technically known as spheksophobia, is a relatively common type of specific phobia. It is similar to fear of bees. Both are types of entomophobia, which is itself a category of zoophobia.

<i>The Swarm</i> (1978 film) 1978 US natural horror film by Irwin Allen

The Swarm is a 1978 American natural horror film directed and produced by Irwin Allen and based on Arthur Herzog's 1974 novel. It stars an ensemble cast, including Michael Caine, Katharine Ross, Richard Widmark, Richard Chamberlain, Olivia de Havilland, Ben Johnson, Lee Grant, José Ferrer, Patty Duke, Slim Pickens, Bradford Dillman, Henry Fonda and Fred MacMurray in his final film role. It follows a scientist and a military task force who try to prevent a large swarm of killer bees from invading Texas. The film received overwhelmingly negative reviews from critics and was a box-office bomb, although praise was given to the costume design. It has been considered to be one of the worst films ever made.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Schmidt sting pain index</span> Pain scale for insect stings

The Schmidt sting pain index is a pain scale rating the relative pain caused by different hymenopteran stings. It is mainly the work of Justin O. Schmidt, who was an entomologist at the Carl Hayden Bee Research Center in Arizona. Schmidt published a number of works on the subject and claimed to have been stung by the majority of stinging Hymenoptera.

This page is a glossary of beekeeping.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stingless bee</span> Bee tribe, reduced stingers, strong bites

Stingless bees (SB), sometimes called stingless honey bees or simply meliponines, are a large group of bees (from about 462 to 552 described species), comprising the tribe Meliponini (or subtribe Meliponina according to other authors). They belong in the family Apidae (subfamily Apinae), and are closely related to common honey bees (HB, tribe Apini), orchid bees (tribe Euglossini), and bumblebees (tribe Bombini). These four bee tribes belong to the corbiculate bees monophyletic group. Meliponines have stingers, but they are highly reduced and cannot be used for defense, though these bees exhibit other defensive behaviors and mechanisms. Meliponines are not the only type of bee incapable of stinging: all male bees and many female bees of several other families, such as Andrenidae and Megachilidae (tribe Dioxyini), also cannot sting.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bees in mythology</span> Mythological depictions of bees

Bees have been featured in myth and folklore around the world. Honey and beeswax have been important resources for humans since at least the Mesolithic period, and as a result humans' relationship with bees—particularly honey bees—has ranged from encounters with wild bees to keeping them agriculturally. Bees themselves are often characterized as magically imbued creatures and their honey as a divine gift.

Entomophobia, sometimes known as insectophobia, is a specific phobia characterized by an excessive or unrealistic fear (disgust) of one or more classes of insect, and classified as a phobia by the DSM-5. More specific cases include katsaridaphobia, melissophobia, myrmecophobia, and lepidopterophobia. One book claims 6% of all US inhabitants have this phobia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bee sting</span> Puncture wound caused by a bees stinger

A bee sting is the wound and pain caused by the stinger of a female bee puncturing skin. Bee stings differ from insect bites, with the venom of stinging insects having considerable chemical variation. The reaction of a person to a bee sting may vary according to the bee species. While bee stinger venom is slightly acidic and causes only mild pain in most people, allergic reactions may occur in people with allergies to venom components.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Honeydew (secretion)</span> Sugar-rich liquid

Honeydew is a sugar-rich sticky liquid, secreted by aphids, some scale insects, and many other true bugs and some other insects as they feed on plant sap. When their mouthpart penetrates the phloem, the sugary, high-pressure liquid is forced out of the anus of the insects, allowing them to rapidly process the large volume of sap required to extract essential nutrients present at low concentrations. Honeydew is particularly common as a secretion in hemipteran insects and is often the basis for trophobiosis. Some caterpillars of Lycaenidae butterflies and some moths also produce honeydew. In addition to various sugars, honeydew contains small amounts of amino acids, other organic compounds, and inorganic salts with its precise makeup affected by factors such as insect species, host plant species, and whether a symbiotic organism is present.

<i>Apis dorsata</i> Species of insect

Apis dorsata, the rock bee or giant honey bee, is a honey bee of South and Southeast Asia. They are typically around 17–20 mm (0.7–0.8 in) long and nests are mainly built in exposed places far off the ground, like on tree limbs, under cliff overhangs, and under buildings. These social bees are known for their aggressive defense strategies and vicious behavior when disturbed. Though not domesticated, indigenous peoples have traditionally used this species as a source of honey and beeswax, a practice known as honey hunting.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bee smoker</span> Device which produces smoke; used in beekeeping

A bee smoker is a device used in beekeeping to calm honey bees. It is designed to generate smoke from the smoldering of various fuels, hence the name. It is commonly designed as a stainless steel cylinder with a lid that narrows to a small gap. The base of the cylinder has another small opening that is adjacent to a bellow nozzle. Pumping of the bellows forces air through the bottom opening. The cylinder may also have a wire frame around to protect hands from burning. Some smokers have a hook on the side allowing the user to hang the device on the side of a beehive for easy access during an inspection or attach it to an ALICE belt when not in use.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Western honey bee</span> European honey bee

The western honey bee or European honey bee is the most common of the 7–12 species of honey bees worldwide. The genus name Apis is Latin for 'bee', and mellifera is the Latin for 'honey-bearing' or 'honey-carrying', referring to the species' production of honey.

References

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.