How unmatched are hornets when just 30 of them are enough to 'clean up' 30,000 honey bees in just 3 hours

The Asian giant hornet is the largest hornet in the world. It is native to temperate and tropical East Asia, South Asia, mainland Southeast Asia, and parts of the Russian Far East. They prefer to live in low mountains and forests, and avoid plains and high-altitude climates completely.

Wasps are a danger to many other living animals, including humans.

The power of wasps

The wasp's stinger injects a particularly potent venom containing Mastoparan-M . They are cytolytic peptides that can cause tissue damage by stimulating phospholipase activity.

Describes the feeling of being stung by a wasp as being like "a hot nail stuck in your leg" . Besides using their stingers to inject venom, Asian giant hornets appear to be able to inject venom into human eyes under certain circumstances, with one report in 2020 from Japan of lasting damage. long term, although the exact degree of visual impairment remains unknown.

An Asian hornet.

Additionally, the venom contains a neurotoxin called Mandaratoxin . Although a single wasp cannot inject a lethal dose, multiple stings can be fatal. People with insect venom allergy have a higher risk of death.

Besides, wasps also have other advantages such as being 14 times larger than normal honey bees. Their senses are more sensitive than humans and are ranked 2nd on the list of insects with the longest ability to cause pain.

30 Asian hornet warriors can raid a large honey bee nest and destroy all 30,000 European honey bees in just 3 hours. This also shows that wasps have the ability to fly very far without getting tired. They can also fight with a swarm of bees for a long time without getting tired.

Asian hornets can single-handedly defeat a praying mantis. They are significantly stronger than European Hornets, can overpower mice, and have stingers so hard they can pierce a beekeeper's protective clothing.

The woes of the Western honey bee

Normally, Asian Giant Hornets are intensely predatory. They typically prey on medium to large sized insects, such as honey bees, other wasps, beetles, hornworms, and praying mantises.

This Asian hornet species often attacks honey bees to obtain adults, pupae, and larvae as food for their own larvae. A scout, sometimes two or three, cautiously approaches the hive, secreting pheromones to guide others to the nest.

Next, about 30-40 warrior hornets can raid and devastate a colony of honey bees, especially if they are Western honey bees. In battle, a wasp can kill up to 40 honey bees per minute due to its large jaws that can quickly attack and decapitate its prey.

Honey bee stings are ineffective because hornets are five times their size and heavily armored. Just a few hornets (less than 50) can destroy a swarm of tens of thousands of bees in just a few hours. The hornets can fly up to 100 km (60 miles) in a day, at speeds of up to 40 km/h (25 mph).

Unique strategy against wasps

Although a handful of Asian giant hornets can easily defeat the uncoordinated defenses of Western honey bee colonies. However , the Japanese honey bee (Apis cerana japonica) has a much more effective defense strategy.

When a scout wasp locates and approaches a Japanese honey bee nest, it emits specific pheromone hunting signals. When Japanese honey bees detect these pheromones, about 100 of them will gather near the nest entrance and set traps, keeping the entrance open.

This allows wasps to enter the nest. When the hornet enters, a crowd of hundreds of Japanese honeybees surround it in a ball, completely covering it and preventing it from responding effectively.

The bees violently vibrate their flight muscles in the same way they do to warm the hive in cold conditions. This increases the temperature in the balloon to a critical temperature of 46°C.

In addition, the honeybee's efforts increase the amount of carbon dioxide (CO ₂ ) in the balloon. Japanese honey bees can endure temperatures up to 50 °C and concentrated CO ₂ concentrations , but hornets cannot survive.

By killing the scout hornet, the Japanese honey bee prevented a raid by warriors consisting of dozens of powerful and brutal hornets.