![]() ![]() ![]() Persistence using any of these approaches can result in debilitation or death of a colony. Hornet attacks on nests range from solitary individuals hunting bees near the ground, darting in from perches near entrances, and hawking bees from the air to mass slaughter of bees and occupation of their nests by groups of hornets. While there is evidence that honey bees may try to use their sting against hornets, they are often ineffective when attackers are large. Vespa hornets are superbly adapted for hunting insects like bees: they are typically larger than their victims, they have strong mandibles for crushing, dismembering and masticating prey, and, while armed with a venomous sting, they are well-armored to avoid stings themselves. Hornets hunt for insects to feed offspring that demand a continuous source of fresh prey, which can be provided in abundance by the resources in a honey bee nest. For honey bees, eusocial wasps in the genus Vespa (the true hornets) are a particularly dangerous category of predator that exert tremendous selective pressure on their prey. Honey bee nests attract an array of vertebrate and invertebrate predators, most of which are larger than bees themselves and attack colonies to prey upon adults and brood and steal stored food. Because of their ability to respond to threats collectively, honey bees exhibit varied and often spectacular suites of defensive responses to counteract the predatory pressures that different species face. Honey bees (genus Apis), famous for the resources that their prolific colonies sequester, provide an impressive example of the diversity of nest-defense strategies that have evolved within a geographically widespread group. Nest defense can take the form of physical, chemical, and behavioral barriers, the combination of which are known as defense portfolios. Social insects house families in centralized, resource-rich nests, a trait that has driven the evolution of defense strategies to counteract attempts by thieves and predators to exploit their bounty. It also highlights the strong selective pressure honey bees will encounter if giant hornets, recently detected in western North America, become established. Our study describes a remarkable weapon in the already sophisticated portfolio of defenses that honey bees have evolved in response to the predatory threats they face. cerana forages for animal feces because it has properties that repel this deadly predator from nest entrances, providing the first report of tool use by honey bees and the first evidence that they forage for solids that are not derived from plants. soror to penetrate nests by lowering the incidence of multiple-hornet attacks and substantially reducing the likelihood of them approaching and chewing on entrances. Moderate to heavy fecal spotting suppressed attempts by V. soror, which frequently landed at and chewed on entrances to breach nests, but not Vespa velutina, a smaller hornet that rarely landed at entrances. Spotting continued for days after attacks ceased and occurred in response to V. Fecal spotting increased after colonies were exposed either to naturally occurring attacks or to chemicals that scout hornets use to target colonies for mass attack. cerana workers foraged for and applied spots of animal feces around their nest entrances. ![]() We document for the first time an extraordinary collective defense used by Apis cerana against the giant hornet Vespa soror. In Asia, honey bees have evolved under tremendous predatory pressure from social wasps in the genus Vespa, the most formidable of which are the giant hornets that attack colonies in groups, kill adult defenders, and prey on brood. Honey bees (genus Apis) are well known for the impressive suite of nest defenses they have evolved to protect their abundant stockpiles of food and the large colonies they sustain. ![]()
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