Good for you and (even more) good for her. So many people resort to, "That's just the way it is".

I won't be the only visitor here who applauds your granddaughter's use of the word "evolve" as well. I once had a protracted argument with a woman who refused to understand that evolution doesn't think. As far as she was concerned, each organism had a reason for existing and that reason was the common good of all other organisms. The argument started with a wasp. I couldn't get her to see that a wasp is just exploiting a niche. To her it was in that niche to catch insects and spiders so that we don't have to put up with them.

If I was going to try to answer your granddaughter's original question I would start by saying that not all bees die when stinging. This contradicts a popular myth and will teach her the importance of believing things only when they are proven or come from a very reliable source. Six is just the right age to start being cynical <smile>. Secondly, I would try to get across Jon's point about eusocial insects. To put it simply, the average bee is part of a whole, it is not a whole in itself. The death of a single bee is equivalent to a scratch on your arm; the death of a hundred bees might be a flesh wound. Each death hurts the hive, but can be repaired.

You have cells in your blood whose job is to sacrifice their own lives in defence of your body. We're just like a hive of bees really!