Giant Amazon Bees and the Sting That Earned a Place on the Bite Sting Index

All right, on this adventure, we are trekking deep into the Amazon rainforest of Peru, looking to add another contender to the Brave Wilderness Bite Sting Index. But we're not looking for randoms today, guys. We're looking for a particular species, and that particular species would be a bee. Not just any bee, mind you, we're talking giant bees. This rainforest is home to some of the largest solitary bees on the planet. Unfortunately, they are super rare and hard to catch, so in order to find one and get it in our net, we're going to have to cover a lot of ground.

Let the adventure begin. Yeah, we want to keep our eyes to the sky and to the ground. We never know where the next sighting is going to come from. That's kind of the exciting part about being in a rainforest is there's just so much potential here. There's almost unlimited opportunities to find cool animals from amphibians to snakes, insects like bullet ants and assassin bugs and tarantula hawks. If we got really lucky or maybe unlucky, we'd even see a panther. Here's something buzzing around. Oh geez, that's one of those bees.

Oh, I missed it. Oh, that would've been awesome. That was a huge bee. Did you see that? Dang. Biggest difference between our Costa Rican adventures in the rainforest and here in the Amazon is scale. Look at how huge that tree is. Wow, that is easily over a hundred foot tall. One of the most dangerous things that can happen to you out here in this jungle is getting hit by a tree. Believe it or not, more people die out here in the Amazon from tree fall than they do venomous snake bites. It's kind of hard to believe, but it's absolutely true.

Oh, there's one of those bees, dude. I just can't get a swipe at it from right here. Did it land on that tree? I got it. Yes. What is it? Oh my gosh, dude. Look at this bee. It's got like tiger stripes. Wow. Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. Don't get stung yet. Almost got it. Oh, there it is. That is the giant bee I was hoping to find, the tiger bee. And from what I've heard, it can really pack a punch with its sting.

Let's go set up the sting table. All right, guys. Well, it turns out the bee that we caught today in the Amazon is a very special bee. This is one of the strongest bees on the planet, and our normal methods of performing these stings are not going to work. So needless to say, this is probably going to be one of the most challenging stings I will ever attempt, and is why this bee is currently in a much larger enclosure. First thing I'd like to do is get the bee out of this large enclosure and into this smaller container so I can tell you why it is so special.

I travel internationally a lot for our productions, and on one particular trip, my luggage never showed up. We were on a tight schedule trying to film a rare animal, and the last thing you want is for something to slow you down. That's exactly the kind of situation that the Ultra Plan by Olafly is designed for. With luggage protection, I get fast payout within 24 hours to buy clothes and emergency items if my bag goes missing. No proof of contents are needed, plus help recovering its value. It's a monthly travel plan that has your back when things go wrong, and it provides unlimited data in more than 160 destinations. So when I land, I'm connected

and can coordinate with people on the ground without sim swaps or roaming fees. Once we're on a location, I can hotspot my laptop and get important work done when reliable Wi-Fi isn't an option. And if a flight gets canceled, I get support with the claim and keep 100% of what's recovered. One of the biggest benefits is the twenty four seven doctor chat. If I get sick halfway around the world, I can talk with the doctor instead of navigating an unfamiliar healthcare system. So if you're heading abroad, check out the ultra plan by Olafly by clicking the link in the description and use the code Brave Wilderness to get 10% off your first 12 months.

All right, now back to the action. Trying to transfer it to a container and then eventually to the sting forceps, it's going to be risky. Finding another one of these bees is going to be near impossible. This bee is extremely nomadic. They're excellent flyers. In fact, they can fly up to 30 miles. But for today's experiment, that means this bee can zip away in a flash, which we don't want to happen just yet. So I'm going to try my best. Kind of though this through. Where's the thought? I got it right here. Got it.

All right. Nice. All right guys. So as you already know, I called it a tiger bee because of the stripes on its abdomen, but it's more formally known as a black stripe orchid bee. Now, orchid bees are very important to the rainforest out here in the Amazon because they are very unique pollinators. Not only do bees collect pollen, you can actually see the pollen at the back of the legs there on the broad side of the rear legs. Not only are they great pollinators, but the males of this species actually have a mutualistic relationship with all the orchids that live in the Amazon.

Now, the reason it's mutualistic is because there's no nectar exchange, there's no food. The male bees are only into those orchids because they know the scents attract the female bees, so they're in effect perfume collectors. They collect all of this perfume in the rainforest and then they deposit it in one spot on a particular tree that attracts the female so they can have a nuptial relationship. That's reproduction for those of you who don't know. Without the male bees doing this, the orchids would not be able to pollinate, so they would not exist at all. And then of course, for the species, there would be no mating, so no reproduction equals no bees. So their relationship is thus mutualistic.

They need each other to survive. That's one really cool thing about this bee. The other very important thing about this bee is its size. Look at how big this striped orchid bee is. It is absolutely huge. It's definitely on par with the black carpenter bee that I was stung by in Asia. Oh, wow. Yeah. But out here, this is definitely the King Kong of bees. Now, the reason why the size of this bee is important is because it is one of the few pollinators that can actually open the flower to the Brazil nut tree.

Now, these Brazil nuts are important, not only to this environment, but also to the economy here in the Amazon. It's one of the main exports of Peru. It's actually a very thick flower and you need a very strong bee to pry it open and cross pollinate. And without these bees, the Brazil nut would not exist. Now, we talked about how big it is and how formidable this bee looks. The question remains, does it possess a massive sting?

According to locals, this is one of the most painful stings that you can experience in all of the Amazon, including the bullet ant. So I have a feeling when we put it on the bite sting index after today's video, it might give the murder hornet a run for its money. But famous last words, because there's only one way to find out, it is time to enter the sting zone. This is going to hurt. This is going to hurt a lot. So normally, at this part in the video, I would simply remove the lid, pick up the bee with the forceps, count down to three, and take a sting. The problem is this bee is an absolute giant. It is very strong, and like I just said, it has the ability to fly great distances, so it's not going to hang out. If I lose grip of this bee, it's gone.

So in order to ensure that this happens and we pull this off, the first thing I'm going to do is put it back in the large enclosure where I can have some control and try to get a grip with the forceps. Nope, nope, nope. Okay, hang on. All right, that's what I was afraid of. Okay guys, so here's the deal. Not only is that bee big and strong, it is covered almost entirely in a velvety fur, which doesn't let my forceps grip it whatsoever. So if I try to remove that bee from that enclosure in these tweezers, I'm going to lose that bee almost instantly. So here's where the extreme measures are going to come into play for the sting video.

Now I normally carry a set of gloves with me anywhere I go. You never know on an adventure when you're going to need a good set of gloves, but for today, I think I'm going to have to go manual and manually catch the bee in my fingers to take a sting, which of course presents a lot of challenges. Not only could it get away, but it could also sting through these gloves and I don't know how it's going to go. So I might intentionally take the sting almost immediately or I'm going to get a good grip and we can do this the way we normally do.

So fast. It's not going to work. Nope. All right. Time for plan C. What is plan C? The big forceps. I typically use these for larger species like snakes and lizards. I got it. Oh wow, that's a huge stinger. All right, I got it guys. Wow, that stinger, that's the scariest thing I've ever seen in my life. Holy crap. I'm in a sting zone with the tiger bee on three. One, two. Look at that. You see it, how it's whipping around? Yep. Oh my gosh.

Three. Me already. I didn't get a good one. We got to get better than that. Stinger's in. Oh, you see that? The stinger's all the way in. All right. It's open. I got it. All right. Oh. Oh, yeah. It really hurts. Oh, man.

Yeah. It's very electrical. It's like instant fire, like a hot poker in the epicenter of the sting, but there's almost like a crackling electrical fire all around it, all around it. I can starting to feel it go up the side of my arm too. There's definitely some neurotoxin in there. Oh, man. Oh yeah. No, I got a full sting. That's definitely legit. You can see the venom. I could smell the venom. It sprayed all over there. Yeah, I do. I have it. Don't worry about it. I got it. That is the scariest stinger.

Do you guys see that thing whipping around? I have never seen a stinger like that. That is terrifying. They were not kidding. That is a real deal sting out here in the Amazon rainforest. We're going to give it a little bit of time to see how this aftermath pans out, but you don't have to wait a second. Like usual, we're going to skip ahead and tell you exactly where the tiger bee, the black striped orchid bee ranks on the Brave Wilderness Bite Sting Index. Roll it. For intimidation, this bee had me on edge from the very beginning. The moment I saw the size of its massive stinger, I was horrified thinking about what it was going to do to my arm.

On top of that, it was unbelievably strong, requiring heavy duty forceps just to hold it in place. For those reasons, I give the tiger bee a whopping 8.9 out of 10. For pain, the sting was sharp, immediate, and it packed a punch. But despite the intimidating stinger, it wasn't quite as painful as I expected. It was enough to earn my respect, but it didn't rank among the worst stings I've ever experienced. So for pain, I will give it a respectable 8.1 out of 10. Now for the aftermath, unlike the Bornean Blackbee, which swelled my entire arm up like a water balloon, the tiger bee caused only moderate swelling that was completely manageable.

The soreness and itching lingered for a while, but by comparison, the recovery was much easier than I expected. So for the aftermath, I give it its lowest score, 7.8 out of 10, which gives the tiger bee a final BSI index score of an 8.3 out of 10. But in the end, it still couldn't top the gargantuan black carpenter bee of Borneo.