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  • 2020-05-05 (xsd:date)
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  • Can Honeybees 'Cook' a 'Murder Hornet' Alive? (en)
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  • In May 2020, shortly after The New York Times reported that murder hornets, a nickname for the Asian giant hornet, had been spotted in the United States and posed a threat to honeybees there, a photograph supposedly showing one of these unusually large insects being cooked alive by a group of bees started to circulate on social media: We haven't been able to determine too many specifics about this particular photograph. It has been online since at least 2012 and was reportedly taken by Masato Ono, a researcher from Tamagawa University who has published several studies on bees, wasps, and hornets. While we aren't sure about the specifics surrounding this image, Japanese honeybees truly form hot defensive bee balls that can cook a giant hornet to death. Live Science reported: A video from National Geographic shows this bee ball defense in action. National Geographic writes: Japanese giant hornets pack a venomous sting so strong it can dissolve human tissue. But when a hornet scout enters a beehive, watch as the bees turn the tables on their enemy — and literally bake the predator to death! While this hot defensive bee ball was once believed to be a defense mechanism unique to Japanese honeybees, researchers have since observed this behavior in European honeybees, the most common pollinator in the United States. Here's an excerpt from the 2017 study published in Entomological Science: While Asian giant hornets were not widespread in the United States in May 2020, the first sightings of this non-native predator had beekeepers concerned. Ruthie Danielsen, a beekeeper in Birch Bay, Washington, told The New York Times: A video from the BBC shows giant Asian hornets destroying a colony of defenseless European honeybees: In short, Japanese honeybees have developed a defense against Asian giant hornets (murder hornets) that involves swarming the large insect in a hot defensive bee ball until the predator is essentially cooked to death. (en)
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