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It’s worth noting that the honeybee defense mechanism you describe is unique to Asian honeybees, which evolved this defense specifically because of the native A
by bgentry 6y ago
It’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).