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Murder hornets are a real threat to honey bee hives. A handful of hornets can take out a hive of thousands. What's interesting is the way that honey bees defen
by doc_gunthrop 6y ago
Murder hornets are a real threat to honey bee hives. A handful of hornets can take out a hive of thousands.
What's interesting is the way that honey bees defend against them. A bunch of bees surround each hornet, then they intensify the flapping of their wings, which then generates enough heat to kill the hornet. In other words, the hornets are cooked alive.
- _joel 6y agoThat's only an adaptation that some bees have. European ones, for example, do not have that adaptation so carnage ensues.
- doc_gunthrop 6y agoYes, it's worthwhile to note that it's an adaptation that evolved regionally.
- bgentry 6y agoIt’s worth noting that the honeybee defense mechanism you describe is unique to Asian honeybees, which evolved this defense specifically because of the native Asian giant hornet / murder hornet. European honeybees, which are used in most of the world, have no such defense mechanism and would indeed be helplessly slaughtered by these hornets. I’d definitely advocate watching some YouTube footage about these creatures, they’re fascinating.
- pm90 6y agoWhy don't we cross-breed European with Asian honeybees? Or just start using Asian honeybees?
- tpetry 6y agoIsn‘t that exactly hoe a special very aggressive breed was created? They breed two different ones, both not aggressive but with interesting capabilities and somehow they created an aggressive one?
- masklinn 6y agoYes and no. A biologist (Kerr) was trying to either improve the heat-resistance of european honeybees or gentle the african bees and amplify their productivity. A fuckup led to the release of several of swarms of african bees which went on to crossbreed with local european honeybees, so africanised honeybees were not actually a human creation. The result turned out to mostly take from their african ancestry: highly defensive, fast reproduction, readily swarming (or even absconding), way less picky about their nesting sites, … leading to high invasiveness. AFAIK africanised honeybees are no worse than their african ancestors (though I'm not sure they're any better).
- kadonoishi 6y agoBees form a mass in winter and work their wing muscles to keep themselves warm, rotating bees between inside and surface so none gets too cold for too long. So they did have a base behavior from which the surround-and-cook behavior could evolve. When I first heard about the hornet defense I wondered how on Earth the bees could've come up with that. But if they already clumped up for warmth it's a lot more scrutable.
- HerrMonnezza 6y agoRelevant Oatmeal comic: https://theoatmeal.com/comics/bees_vs_hornets https://theoatmeal.com/comics/bees_vs_hornets
- bgentry 6y agoI think that comic understates the amazingness of the adaptation. The honeybees don’t just swarm the hornets, they will actually retreat into the hive and allow the hornets to enter, then trap them inside while they roast them to death. All of this works because the honeybees can vibrate themselves to a temperature just warmer than the hornets can tolerate, which is also just less than the bees can tolerate. Just one or two degrees celsius of tolerance is the difference. Hopefully no Asian giant hornets ever evolve a slightly higher temperature tolerance!