Cyprian Bees vs. Hornets = Dead Hornets

[rhoenix]

Mon Sep 17, 12:15 PM ET

PARIS (AFP) - Cyprian honey bees under attack by predator hornets have evolved a grisly and lethal way of fighting back which scientists have called "asphyxia-balling," according to a study published Monday.

An intruding hornet looking for a snack in a beehive may suddenly find itself enveloped inside a buzzing ball of black-and-yellow worker drones. The bees squeeze in tightly around the abdomen -- where hornets breath -- until the would be aggressor dies of suffocation.

A team of Greek and French biologists, led by Alexandrous Papachristoforou of Aristotle University, observed this insect drama dozens of times, both in the laboratory and in nature.

The average time for smothering a hornet was 57.8 minutes.

The technique used by Apis mellifera to dispatch its most formidable enemy, reported in the British journal Current Biology, differs in crucial ways from that used by its Asian cousin.

Asian honey bees also form a deadly scrum around a hornet but rather than smothering the attacker, they kill it by raising the hornet's body temperature -- by pressing in while buzzing their wings -- beyond a critical threshold.

Cyprian bees, however, cannot generate enough heat to kill by "thermo-balling" and thus crush in on the hornet's abdomen.

In the end, the researchers conclude, the hornet dies from a combination of overheating, carbon dioxide poisoning and lack of oxygen.

So, Cyprian bees just mass to asphyxiate a hornet, whereas Asian honey bees actually bake a hornet to death?

[Molyneux]

Pretty much. I always did prefer bees to hornets...

[OmegaGuy]

Makes me think of how the Mantrid drones defeated the modified Mantrid drones created to destroy them in Lexx

[Alyrium Denryle]

Mon Sep 17, 12:15 PM ET

PARIS (AFP) - Cyprian honey bees under attack by predator hornets have evolved a grisly and lethal way of fighting back which scientists have called "asphyxia-balling," according to a study published Monday.

An intruding hornet looking for a snack in a beehive may suddenly find itself enveloped inside a buzzing ball of black-and-yellow worker drones. The bees squeeze in tightly around the abdomen -- where hornets breath -- until the would be aggressor dies of suffocation.

A team of Greek and French biologists, led by Alexandrous Papachristoforou of Aristotle University, observed this insect drama dozens of times, both in the laboratory and in nature.

The average time for smothering a hornet was 57.8 minutes.

The technique used by Apis mellifera to dispatch its most formidable enemy, reported in the British journal Current Biology, differs in crucial ways from that used by its Asian cousin.

Asian honey bees also form a deadly scrum around a hornet but rather than smothering the attacker, they kill it by raising the hornet's body temperature -- by pressing in while buzzing their wings -- beyond a critical threshold.

Cyprian bees, however, cannot generate enough heat to kill by "thermo-balling" and thus crush in on the hornet's abdomen.

In the end, the researchers conclude, the hornet dies from a combination of overheating, carbon dioxide poisoning and lack of oxygen.

So, Cyprian bees just mass to asphyxiate a hornet, whereas Asian honey bees actually bake a hornet to death?

Pretty much. And it isnt just one hornet. It is a scout for a colony of hornets.

Hornets feed their larvae the flesh of other insects, the most efficient way to do this is to slaughter a bee colony. So they send out scouts who find bee hives and report back. The bees cannot kill the massively larger hornets, their stingers cant penetrate the exoskeleton, and their heads just get bitten off. So they have no choice but to annihilate the scout.

[The Vortex Empire]

Huh. Interesting. Bees choking hornets to death. I wonder how that came around. Soon enough, they'll do the same to us when we get anywhere near their nests, and then feed us to their young.

[petesampras]

Mon Sep 17, 12:15 PM ET

PARIS (AFP) - Cyprian honey bees under attack by predator hornets have evolved a grisly and lethal way of fighting back which scientists have called "asphyxia-balling," according to a study published Monday.

An intruding hornet looking for a snack in a beehive may suddenly find itself enveloped inside a buzzing ball of black-and-yellow worker drones. The bees squeeze in tightly around the abdomen -- where hornets breath -- until the would be aggressor dies of suffocation.

A team of Greek and French biologists, led by Alexandrous Papachristoforou of Aristotle University, observed this insect drama dozens of times, both in the laboratory and in nature.

The average time for smothering a hornet was 57.8 minutes.

The technique used by Apis mellifera to dispatch its most formidable enemy, reported in the British journal Current Biology, differs in crucial ways from that used by its Asian cousin.

Asian honey bees also form a deadly scrum around a hornet but rather than smothering the attacker, they kill it by raising the hornet's body temperature -- by pressing in while buzzing their wings -- beyond a critical threshold.

Cyprian bees, however, cannot generate enough heat to kill by "thermo-balling" and thus crush in on the hornet's abdomen.

In the end, the researchers conclude, the hornet dies from a combination of overheating, carbon dioxide poisoning and lack of oxygen.

So, Cyprian bees just mass to asphyxiate a hornet, whereas Asian honey bees actually bake a hornet to death?

Pretty much. And it isnt just one hornet. It is a scout for a colony of hornets.

Hornets feed their larvae the flesh of other insects, the most efficient way to do this is to slaughter a bee colony. So they send out scouts who find bee hives and report back. The bees cannot kill the massively larger hornets, their stingers cant penetrate the exoskeleton, and their heads just get bitten off. So they have no choice but to annihilate the scout.

This only works on scouts though? Surely a full Hornet 'attack party' would make this impractical.

[rhoenix]

This only works on scouts though? Surely a full Hornet 'attack party' would make this impractical.

Sure - but a full Hornet attack party requires knowing where to go - which is the scout's job. Ace the scout, and no attack party.

It's somewhat amusing that "kill the messenger" is a bee credo when it comes to hornets.

[Alyrium Denryle]

So, Cyprian bees just mass to asphyxiate a hornet, whereas Asian honey bees actually bake a hornet to death?

Pretty much. And it isnt just one hornet. It is a scout for a colony of hornets.

Hornets feed their larvae the flesh of other insects, the most efficient way to do this is to slaughter a bee colony. So they send out scouts who find bee hives and report back. The bees cannot kill the massively larger hornets, their stingers cant penetrate the exoskeleton, and their heads just get bitten off. So they have no choice but to annihilate the scout.

This only works on scouts though? Surely a full Hornet 'attack party' would make this impractical.

Basically. It takes what? Hundreds of bees almost ab hour to kill one hornet, many of whom die in the process from the same asphyxiation visited upon the predator. They couldnt do that with an attack party, they have to ace the scout

[Oni Koneko Damien]

This only works on scouts though? Surely a full Hornet 'attack party' would make this impractical.

Depends on the method, really. The asphyx method, yeah, because a lot of the bees will die from the same thing and attrition will wear the hive down. Baking, though, can repel full-on wasp assaults. In general, wasp nests are *much* small than bee nests, having only a couple dozen hornets compared to the hundreds of bees in the average next. The bees generally outnumber the hornets by enough of a ratio that baking becomes a viable tactic.

This tactic also has the added advantage that when wasps are balled, as opposed to stung to death, they're much less likely to release the "I'm being attacked!" pheremone which sends all nearby wasps into a killing frenzy.

That said, yeah, I generally find bees much 'friendlier' (read: Non-aggressive) than wasps. Part of it is due to the fact that most bees are herbivorous, compared to the carnivorous wasps, a certain amount of aggression is required for the latter to survive.

On top of that, bee-stingers are barbed. When a bee stings, it basically disembowels itself on the thing it stung. On one hand, this results in more venom being injected, on the other hand, it's a one time thing that results in the death of the bee. So millions of years of evolution have made the average bee *very* hesitant about using its stinger.

Wasps, on the other hand, have smooth stingers. They can sting as many times as they want without fear of gutting themselves. It generally makes them a *lot*more aggressive with their venom.