RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS

摘要

Honeybees don't just kill hornets with heat -they gas them, too. The giant hornet (Vespa mandarinia japonica) is a ferocious predator of the Japanese honeybee (Apis cerana japonica). The bees fight back by smothering the invader inside a ball formed by their swarming bodies, killing the hornet in minutes. It was thought that the temperature inside the ball - which can rise to around 46 ℃ - killed the hornet while sparing the more heat-tolerant bees.