Sweet and sour story of the gutloading

for sure they eat bees and wasps
For some species, it is the dominant food source

your chameleon should be easily able to catch and eat it if it is not a too big size for it
I want to use them as feeders if they are so good for them, but I don't want there to be a chance of my cham getting stung. I'm not really worried about the cham getting stung while the wasp is on the loose, but rather in the cham's mouth. Even dead wasps can sting. Do you guys have vids of a veiled eating a wasp or be?? I want to make sure it is ok.
 
Here is an oust just going to town eating small bees. And you would think the smaller the bee the greater the odds of getting stung, but again its just nom nom all day.

 
Yes, chameleons eat bees and wasps, and from what I read, stings are very infrequent. However, I think making your own risk assessment based on reflection as well as anecdotal data is important. I don’t raise bees and wasps to feed year-round. But when my chams go outside for the summer, I’m sure they tag many. Your intuitions appear to be giving you pause about this. So, rather than merely asking other people online whether you should or shouldn’t, why not hold off until you have assuaged your conscience with verifiable data.
 
Yes, chameleons eat bees and wasps, and from what I read, stings are very infrequent. However, I think making your own risk assessment based on reflection as well as anecdotal data is important. I don’t raise bees and wasps to feed year-round. But when my chams go outside for the summer, I’m sure they tag many. Your intuitions appear to be giving you pause about this. So, rather than merely asking other people online whether you should or shouldn’t, why not hold off until you have assuaged your conscience with verifiable data.

Is there risks with getting stung? Negative effects? Any data you have seen about this?
 
Is there risks with getting stung? Negative effects? Any data you have seen about this?

Oh definitely. He must surely have some reliable data before telling me to stop "merely asking people online" and to go "assuage my conscience."

But I'm gonna go look at some "Verifiable Data" so that I can go "assuage my conscience" instead of "Merely asking other people online whether you should or shouldn't", right?
 
but what about veileds?? If it is such a great feeder i will do it.

i jsve done hundreds of fecal samples of wild Yemen chameleons, they are full of bees and wasps.
I jave no evidence of any single sting in my 30years practice of breeding them in thousands and I fed with bees and wesps. The only case ai jave seen in years was an unfortunate case when a captive young Calumma brevicorne packed a carpenter bee of very big size (exceeding bead length), it was stung into the head and died.
But tjisbwas due to inadequate size.
They do it fir millions of years. You will bot find in literatire an evidence of absence of potential problem, as thisnis a nonsense. Same as you will metely find a report on the risks of breathing, running the Krebs-cycle and defecating.
 
Is there risks with getting stung? Negative effects? Any data you have seen about this?
I have not read any data about stings. My guess is that there is always a risk of getting stung. I don’t know how much damage a sting would do were it to be on the skin; but I shutter to think what a sting in the mouth or on the tongue would look like.
 
Oh definitely. He must surely have some reliable data before telling me to stop "merely asking people online" and to go "assuage my conscience."

But I'm gonna go look at some "Verifiable Data" so that I can go "assuage my conscience" instead of "Merely asking other people online whether you should or shouldn't", right?
Yikes! Sorry bud, I didn’t mean to come across as rude. My apologies. Let me rephrase. You asked us whether you should or shouldn’t, but seemed to be hesitant. Since several of us indicated that chameleons do in fact eat bees and wasps, and since you still seemed to hold some reservations, I recommended what I, myself, would do; namely, to seek out additional info to make me feel more confident in a answer either way. ‘Merely’ was not meant pejoratively, but as indicative of the other avenues of research possible. That being said, the only one to blame for the confusion is me, and for my poor choice in diction, I apologize.
 
Further to my last,

Here is a reference that might be helpful. I don't know whether you can find it on an open source site.

Pleguezuelos, J.M., Poveda, R., and Ontiveros, D. 1999. Feeding habits of the common chameleon, Chamaeleo chamaeleon in the southeastern Iberian Peninsula. ISRAEL JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY. 45:267-276

Pleguezuelos et al. find that the majority of the diet of C. chamaeleon is comprised of wasps and bees (hymenoptera) during the spring at least. Hope this helps.
 
i jsve done hundreds of fecal samples of wild Yemen chameleons, they are full of bees and wasps.
I jave no evidence of any single sting in my 30years practice of breeding them in thousands and I fed with bees and wesps. The only case ai jave seen in years was an unfortunate case when a captive young Calumma brevicorne packed a carpenter bee of very big size (exceeding bead length), it was stung into the head and died.
But tjisbwas due to inadequate size.
They do it fir millions of years. You will bot find in literatire an evidence of absence of potential problem, as thisnis a nonsense. Same as you will metely find a report on the risks of breathing, running the Krebs-cycle and defecating.
What is it about their hunting technique that allows them to avoid the sting so well?
 
I want to use them as feeders if they are so good for them, but I don't want there to be a chance of my cham getting stung. I'm not really worried about the cham getting stung while the wasp is on the loose, but rather in the cham's mouth. Even dead wasps can sting. Do you guys have vids of a veiled eating a wasp or be?? I want to make sure it is ok.

I have seen my chams grab a lot of bees, they seem to chew them fast enough to avoid stings. I wonder if they are less affected by stings because you bring up a good point about wasps. My 1 year old was playing with an old dead wasp he found several months back(without us noticing) and it stung him.
 
What is it about their hunting technique that allows them to avoid the sting so well?

IMHO it is a combination of several factors
1. Surprize (the orey is shocked and need some time to consolidate and react and it looses time)
2. Speed (the retracting happens slowly than orojectio. But is rather quick, so before the lrey can react, it is crushed)
3. Mechanical demolition (once in mouth, the brey is crushed and lioses the capabikity to sting)
4. Hardness (the areas aroun mouth are hard so even if they want ti sting, they merely can, itnis full of hard keratinous scales)
5. Size (usually rhe soze if the lrey is much smaller than the mouth lengts and itnis overpowered easily)
6. Experience (itnis obvious that an animal will develop tricks and texhniques how to avoid a bire from the most or one of the most frequent prey items)
 
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