Honey bees create waves to chase enemies away

The phenomenon of hundreds or even thousands of giant honey bees tossing their belly up in just about a second of a second to create a wave of Mexican Wave in the hives has attracted much attention. But both the exact mode of action as well as the purpose of the phenomenon has long been a mystery.

In a study published in PloS ONE, researchers at the University of Graz, Austria and the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew (UK) have announced the discovery that the waves that bees make - one the rapid communication method in giant honeycomb - acts as a defense mechanism, helps repel troubled wasps; Forcing them to hunt for single flying bees in the distance, not attacking those in the nest.

Giant Southeast Asian honey bees (Apis dorsata) live in nests with only one hole at their favorite traditional nesting sites where hundreds of bees gather on trees, rocks or people's houses. . They may visit these places for many years. Honey bees manage a team of worker bees with a delicate balance between food and defensive barriers. The main defense of bees is to preserve the settlement of the members of the herd, and at the same time turn the nest into a dangerous place for potential predators. In order to set a higher gate price, it is better for aggressive people to protect the honeycomb's resource efficiency (minimizing losses and costs to the maximum), a large-scale defense tactic has evolution in giant honeycomb, all 'warlike' or 'easy-going' behaviors are used.

In the study published in PloS ONE, Gerald Kastberger and his colleagues focused on understanding wave action in giant honey bees. This is a curious feature made in the honeycomb similar to the wave of Mexican Wave that fans often perform in the ball match. It was previously known that this phenomenon was evoked by visible agents: it was the enemy, especially the wasps that were stalking around. A high-level coordinated response of bees requires hundreds of members to line up, to perform quick notification in the herd. This is also a surprising, unique ability in the kingdom of animals.

When giant honey bees in a wave formation, they target two main objects: first, you and your team coordinated to work with them, and those that can be disturbed. The authors concede that the members of the bees gather together into a dense network that forms a "bee curtain" on both sides of the honeycomb, they continuously transmit and receive information about the situation of the bees. teams, announcing their other day-to-day jobs include: food search, reproduction, reorganization and defense activities. The second object is predators like wasps and mammals.

Giant honeycomb Apis dorsata. (Photo: Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

In the article, Kastberger and his colleagues have shown that wave action is carried out as a strategy to deal with the enemy. They analyzed about 500 interactions between honey bees and wasps and found that the action was carried out by giant honey bees to show their attitudes towards the approaching wasps.The strength and proportion of phenomena is related to the speed of the wasps and the degree of proximity to the honeycomb.

Researchers also found that wasps reacted to the wave of honey bees, which seemed to be elusive. This reaction also happens to be equivalent to the time of the wave. The wasps were discouraged by a large-scale wave image, especially when they were less than 50 centimeters away from the honeycomb, while the small-scale wave only confused the wasps when they are very close to the honeycomb. As a result, the wave of honey bees forces the wasps to change their hunting tactics, they must fly away from the honeycomb at least 50 cm to hunt the single bees alone.

The scientists also discussed the evolutionary principle of the benefits that wave phenomenon brings to giant honey bees. They concluded that wave creation is a key feature for honey bees to maintain their lifestyle that evolved millions of years ago. The giant honey bee's interaction with the same-looking wasps during the creation process has supported the hypothesis that reciprocal co-adjustment between prey and predator also plays a role in this case. The interaction here is the interplay between the honeycomb wave action and the regression of the wasps.

Creating waves based on unique communication principles, it is also a convincing example of self-organization. Additional studies can bring more insights into hot biological topics in the social system, such as collaborative relationships, job assignments, selective decision making, with potential implications in research on continuation and social protection.

Refer:

Gerald Kastberger, Evelyn Schmelzer, Ilse Kranner.Social Waves in Giant Honeybees Repel Hornets.PLoS ONE, 2008;3 (9): e3141 DOI: 10.1371 / journal.pone.0003141