The Sting

I have received many pieces of Email pertaining to bumble bees. Does the bee sting or not? A comment left on the site by Bill has indicated that bumble bees indeed sting and are capable of stinging multiple times. Most bees have a barbed stinger which imbeds into the victim which the bee is unable to extract. The bee will tear itself apart leaving the stinger and a pulsing venom sac behind. The bee perishes all for the good of protecting the colony. BIll has indicated to me that a true bumble bee has a smooth stinger and does not die after stinging.
So I have done some research. I was surprised to find that Bill is correct if we are talking about the female bumble bee. Here is a bit of information from an entomological web site dealing with bumble bee identification.

IDENTIFICATION

Bumble bees are large robust insects with black and yellow coloration. The bumble bee has a black or yellow hairy abdomen, which is a character that can be used to differentiate it from a carpenter bee, which has a black, shiny, hairless abdomen. The foraging bumble bee has a large pollen basket on each hind leg that is often loaded with pollen. The bumble bee queens are typically twice a large as workers or males. A female bumble bee has a pointed abdomen with a stinger. Males do not have a stinger and the tip of the abdomen is rounded.

So, Bill is correct (females) and so am I (males).
The foraging bees are female. They sting. I shall have to follow suit from now on and toss my golf clubs into the air running madly in circles screaming "Bee! Bee!" like the rest of the brave men of the arctic.