The Family Loftus

These Asian Giant Hor­nets are amaz­ing. Here’s a lit­tle video of 30 of them as they destroy a colony of honey bees–30,000 honey bees.

The honey bees have no defense against the hor­nets: their stingers are ineffective.

But some honey bees have devel­oped a defense.

Native bees, how­ever, employ a clever strat­egy once they spot a hor­net scout try­ing to call rein­force­ments via its pheromone trail: About a hun­dred will set a trap near the entrance to the hive, try­ing to lure the scout­ing hor­net fur­ther inside where about 500 honey bees will sur­round it and suf­fo­cate it with their own densely packed bod­ies. In addi­tion, they quickly vibrate their flight mus­cles, there­fore increas­ing the tem­per­a­ture to 47 °C (117 °F), know­ing well that the hor­net can­not sur­vive more than 46 °C (115 °F). The honey bees can barely stand it them­selves and a few will die of over­heat­ing too but that’s a small sac­ri­fice given what would hap­pen if hor­net enforce­ments entered the hive…

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