Bee's Knees?

[mbarker]

Huh! That's an odd bit of trivia. And it raises such an intriguing question, too.

One of the Japanese shows had an apiarist (is that the right word? A guy who studies bees?). He was talking about an invasion of big foreign bees that has been going on here in Japan for about the last five years. The thing is...

Five years ago, the foreign bee (or perhaps a hornet -- Japanese uses the same word for both, so I'm not sure which it is) -- which is roughly five times as long as the Japanese bees kept in hives, really a monster judging from the video he showed -- anyway, this foreign bee would fly into a hive, and sit on the ledge, happily chewing up the little Japanese bees that attacked it. He showed video of the foreign bee killing the bees, and hives with literally a carpet of dead bodies in front of them where one of these foreign bees had attacked. Apparently there was serious concern at that time that these foreign bees might wipe out the bee hives here in Japan.

But this year, something rather strange has happened. The foreign bees still fly up to the hives and attack. But now the Japanese bees swarm over them, and in a short time, kill the big bee! He showed several videos of the big bees being swarmed and dying.

He also explained what is happening. Thermal imaging reveals the attack method. It turns out that the big bees die if the temperature goes above 45 degrees centigrade, but the Japanese bees can handle up to about 50 degrees before they die. And Japanese bees can boost their body temperature by digesting honey very quickly. So... they're literally killing their big enemies with body heat!

I'll tell you what bothered me about his explanation. Five years for the bees to develop an effective method of attack, and apparently start using it fairly widely. Remember, these are those dumb insects? Just following genetic programming, right?

Do you want to explain how they adjusted so quickly to a new predator?

Comments

[dialyn.livejournal.com]

I don't know what to make about that...unlike people, bees apparently learn from experience. Maybe they were holding committee meetings about optimum heating levels? I found this blog about how a queen is introduced into a hive to be rather fascinating...who would have thought of this as a use for marshmallows? http://blog.anniesannuals.com/2011/06/22/were-covered-in-bees/

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

Someone else has explained that I must have misunderstood -- apparently the local bees and the giant hornet have been at it for a long time, it is foreign bees that don't know how to handle the giant hornet. I think maybe the news was about them working out the way they do this -- I know he said they had found something new?