Honey Bees vs. Giant Hornets
When I was a kid, I had a fascination with bees. I’m sure this fascination covered all bugs and critters, but I do remember having spent hours with my nose buried in a flowering plant watching the bees fly from flower to flower. In 6th grade, I entered my school’s annual science fair with a diorama on honeybees. I even used a plastic ice tea cooler with a floral design painted on it to house a few bees and some branches. I don’t remember why but I wasn’t around for the announcement of the prizes. When I returned to my display, I found a blue “First Place” ribbon stuck to my project… despite the fact that all of the bees had died.
You might have noticed that I’ve been taking a lot of photos of Honey Bees recently, but it was an old copy of The Dancing Bees, by that has taken the world of bees into a whole new level for me. Now when I photograph bees, I am understanding more of what they are doing and how they are helping the plant and the bee colony. The information on how bees communicate with each other where nectar has been discovered is fascinating. von Frisch was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1973 for his discovery of this “dance” done in the hive.
Speaking of bees, I recently purchased two insect specimens encased in Lucite: the Asian Honey Bee (Apis cerana) and the Asian Giant Hornet (Vespa Mandarinia).
The Asian Honey Bee is a little smaller than our Western equivalent (Apis mellifera), but most would agree that the Asian Giant Hornet was properly named. This bug is a monster! It can reach lengths up to 2 inches (50 mm), making it the world’s largest hornet. It’s stinger can cause tissue damage and even death to humans without immediate treatment. But we have it easy compared to the European Honey Bee. The hornet’s main source of food is the honey bee’s larvae. They viciously attack and destroy entire European Honey Bee colonies in a day. A single hornet can kill up to 40 Honey Bees per minute, usually killing them by tearing off their heads with their powerful mandibles. The aftermath of a battle between just a few of these hornets and a colony of bees is hard to fathom. A 30,000-member colony can be wiped out by just a small gang of the Asian Giant Hornet in just a few hours.
Here’s a video of an attack:
[kahunna]v23GFc0KG4c[/kahunna]
But the Japanese Honey Bees have a secret weapon. Heat! Check it out:
[kahunna]lUQt6TP2ank[/kahunna]
More reading:
Related posts:
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader. You may also Add to Technorati Favorites!