ty.rannosaur.us

A lot of animals have pretty awesome collective defenses against predators. For example, sea lions will pile up in large groups to keep killer whales at bay. But the Eastern (or Japanese) honey bee has the best collective defense against its natural predator, the Asian giant hornet, ever: body heat.

If you’ve ever seen this famous YouTube video of a few hornets rampaging through a bee hive, then you know why bees are always threatened by hornets. But the Eastern honey bee has developed a defense that involves exploiting the hornet’s upper lethal temperature through their flight muscles:

As a hornet approaches the nest in an attempt to kill honeybees, a hundred or so will guard the nest entrance in an attempt to draw it on.  When the hornet enters the nest, it is immediately mobbed by a clump of approximately 500 honeybees, which, surprisingly, do not sting the hornet to death as previously thought (Schmidt-Nielsen 2001).  Instead, the bees heat themselves up to 47 degrees C very quickly using their flight muscles.  As the hornet’s upper lethal temperature is 44-46 degrees C, it is killed quickly, effectively baked to death by the large clump of bees.

Check out a YouTube video of this happening:

And another one.

Hope you enjoyed this short update. A more serious one will follow whenever some free time opens up. Credit where credit is due: idea via.