Honeybees fight off attacking hornets

The so-called murder hornets, which have surfaced for the first time in United States, have a particular appetite for bees and specialize in group attacks. The slaughter begins when a worker hornet spots a colony, marks with a pheromone and then brings a backup crew of between two and 50 others. While a honeybee hive can have thousands of residents, hornets can wipe out the entire population in hours. But some bees have also demonstrated a remarkable survival strategy by working as a team to fight back against individual invader. While a hornet enters the hive of Japanese honeybees, hundreds of bees can respond by forming a ball around a hornet. While the bees face an immense disadvantage in both size and strength, the bees working in unison can vibrate to produce heat, raising the temperature in the formations, like a tiny oven, to more than 115 degrees. Bees can survive the high temperature, but the hornet cannot, and after up to an hour of cooking, the hornet dies. European honeybees, which are the most common pollinator in the United States, don’t appear to have the same instinct. They try to defend against a hornet attack by stinging the invaders. The honeybee in Japan has adapted with this predator and learned through generations to protect themselves. While the Asian giant hornet is a threat to humans, with a potent stinger that kills up to 50 people each year in Japan, its arrival in the United States has brought particular dread to beekeepers. They are working together to post traps to try to catch queens and workers, and eradicate before it establishes a permanent presence.