The natural world is playing out a cruel race for survival at every moment, from killing to resistance, natural selection, survival of the fittest.
In order to resist the attack of natural enemies and ensure the continuation of the population, weak small animals have evolved a variety of defense measures, and this article introduces a strange way of defense to everyone - bees rely on temperature to kill natural enemies wasps.
Let's take a look at the three protagonists of this article.
Oriental bee, is the traditional breeding of bees in East and South Asia, native to eastern Asia, also known as Asian honey bees, there are many local common names, in China known as Chinese bees (chinese bees), earth bees, wild bees, etc., in Japan known as Japanese bees, in India known as Indian bees.
Western bees, also known as European honey bees, are native to Europe, Africa and western Asia, and have now spread to the lower and middle latitudes of the world, and are currently the most widely farmed bees. There are also many regional species of bees in the West, the most popular of which is the Italian bee (Italian bee).
Vespa, generally refers to the wasp family - wasp subfamily - wasp species, also known as the tiger head wasp, the strongest of which is the golden ring wasp, is the largest wasp, generally can grow to 4 cm, Chengdu Huaxi Insect Museum insect experts in Yunnan Province puer city found a more than 6 cm, wingspan of 9.35 cm individual, creating the world's largest golden ring wasp record. Found in temperate and subtropical regions of eastern and southeastern Asia, the golden-ringed vespa is a densely populated region that is so toxic that hundreds of people die each year from being stung by it.
The characteristics of bees are obvious, they are honey-producing bees, short and thick, furry, developed hind feet, called powder feet, full of bees with pink feet have yellow pollen balls. Pollen-stained bees can pollinate flowers, and the honey, beeswax, and royal jelly they produce are all products that can bring high yields to humans, so in literature bees are described as hard-working gardeners. The tail needle of the bee is connected to the internal organs, and there is a barb on the tail needle, which will be pulled out together with the internal organs when stinging.
Golden-ringed wasps are ferocious predators that attack bees and other wasps, their tail needles can be used multiple times, and powerful mouthparts can kill bees quickly. The bee is much smaller than the golden-ringed wasp, and its tail needle is difficult to pierce the hard exoskeleton of the wasp, and the bee is vulnerable to the wasp. Once the golden-ringed wasp breaks through the hive, it will kill all the bees inside, then plunder the bee larvae and pupae, and one of the hives will be destroyed.
In order to resist the attack of the wasp, the bee evolved a unique way of defense, the number of bees is large, the number of wasps is small, the bees implement the "bee sea tactics", many bees will be a wasp cluster around, forming a tight bee ball, so that the internal temperature rises, the wasp live heat death.
Sounds incredible, but it's completely true.
The first time the image of a bee hot dead wasp was clearly presented on the screen was in the documentary "Buddha, The Bee and the Hornet Queen", I specifically found this clip and took a screenshot of the dynamics.
The bumblebee in the film refers to the Japanese golden-ringed wasp, and the bee refers to the Eastern bee of Japan and the introduction of the Western bee.
▲ The scouts of the golden ring wasp found a hive, released pheromones, its mission is to scout the situation of the honeycomb, estimate the size of the hive and the number of bees, and by the way, catch a bee back, and then lead a large army to sweep the entire hive. The "attacking force" of the Golden Ring Wasp has 10-30 wasps, but it is extremely powerful and can "fight a thousand enemies" against bees. The Oriental Bee has taken the way of luring the enemy deeper, luring the Golden Ring Vespa Scout into the hive, which is not to lure the wolf into the room, but in the narrow and sweltering hive, it is more convenient for the bees to play the "annihilation skill".
The Golden Ring Wasp Scout drilled into the hive to inspect and could see the disparity in size between the two. The bees first pressed their ground, waiting for the attack signal. The Golden Ring Wasp catches a bee, which is the bee's battle signal.
▲ The bees flocked up and surrounded the golden ring wasps. Although the golden-ringed wasp is much larger than the bee, it is also quickly overwhelmed in the face of the "bee sea tactic".
▲ The bee surrounded the golden ring wasp with water, and the temperature inside the bee ball rose rapidly, killing the golden ring wasp alive. There are different theories about the temperature limits that the two can endure, but what is not controversial is that the wasps are less heat-tolerant than the bees, and the Oriental Bees have taken advantage of this to cooperate in killing the Wasp Scouts, but they must control the temperature, otherwise they will also be heated to death. After that, the bees will also throw the wasp carcass out of the hive and erase the pheromone left by the wasp to prevent the wasp from attacking.
If the wasp army comes, the Eastern Bee will also take the way of breaking down one by one, but the odds are relatively low.
For comparison, the documentary also features a clip of Western bees being killed by golden-ringed wasps. According to the film, the Western bees are outsiders, failed to evolve with the Golden Ring Wasp, an Asian predator, and have no resistance to the attack of the wasp.
A golden-ringed wasp can kill 40 Western bees in a minute (this is the statement in the film, I feel exaggerated).
▲ Only 30 golden-ringed wasps killed 30,000 bees in 3 hours, and the hive was full of corpses. Golden ring wasps are not interested in the carcasses of bees on the ground, their favorite is the nutrient-rich bee larvae, after killing the bees, the bee larvae are also doomed, and a swarm is destroyed. Western honeybees are the main breed of bees, and in bad times, the golden-ringed wasp could lose 500,000 bees per beekeeper.
According to the documentary, the Oriental Bee coexisted with the Golden Ring Wasp for millions of years, thus evolving this strange set of tactics to resist the attack of natural enemies, which is the result of natural selection. The Western bees introduced by humans have not dealt with the golden ring vespa, and there is no countermeasure in the face of the invasion of the golden ring vee, which has caused the beekeeping industry to suffer huge losses.
But a documentary doesn't tell the story, and long before the documentary aired, scholars at home and abroad had discovered this defense mechanism of bees. And unlike the results shown in the documentary, Western bees will also clump and kill enemies like Eastern bees.
I found several related papers and articles.
For example, the domestic bee expert Tan Ken's "Research on the Defense Behavior of Vespas and Bees" shows:
Three groups of eastern and western bees were selected for experimental study of clumping temperature, and the stimuli were copper wire head of semiconductor spot temperature instrument and live black shield wasp. The results showed that the number of clumped bees of the oriental honeybees on the two stimuli was 25-32, and the temperature reached 44.6 °C and 45 °C respectively within 210 seconds, and the clump temperature of the stimulus for the live wasps could reach up to 45.6 °C.
The number of clumpy bees in the Western bees on the two stimuli is between 18-26, the clump temperature of the colony on the two stimuli reaches 42.2 °C and 44.1 °C respectively within 210 seconds, and the nodule temperature of the stimulus for live wasps can reach up to 44.4 °C. In the temperature resistance test of the incubator, the maximum temperature limit temperature of the black shield wasp was 46 °C, while the eastern bee was 52 °C, and the western bee was 52 °C, and the temperature tolerance limit of both bees was higher than that of the natural enemy wasp.
From the results of the study, it can be seen that the eastern bees respond stronger to invaders than the western bees, which is manifested in the fact that the number of individual bees participating in the clumping is more than that of the western bees, and the central temperature of the bee clumping rises rapidly, because the maximum core temperature of the two stimuli clumps is 1.1 °C and 1.7 °C higher than that of the Western bees, respectively.
The article "Research on the Defense Mechanism of Eastern Bees and Western Bees against Vespas" published by xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden of the Chinese Academy of Sciences also said that the oriental bees and wasps are geographically distributed, and a mutual adaptation mechanism has been formed in the long-term evolutionary process, and the attacks of eastern bees against venomous bees can be effectively defended. Western bees are outsiders, and there are few wasps in their place of origin, and they cannot form an effective defense like eastern bees.
By establishing Eastern and Western bee colonies, it was found that when vespas attacked, the guard bees of eastern bees would vibrate their wings and abdomen to warn. The guard bees of the Western bees are guarded by sending alarm signals to summon more bees to guard. At the hive gate, the success rate of vespa prey on Western bees reaches 40%, while for Eastern bees it is only 17%.
Once the wasp is close to the hive, the guard bees of the east and west bees will flock to the wasp to clump and "heat the bee" to death. Eastern bees are more in the central area of the clump to fight directly with vespa, western bees are more on the periphery of the clump, and the number of eastern bees sacrificed in the battle is more than 3 times that of the western bees.
This is not the Western bees are timid, but they have not fully mastered the skills of "clumping and killing enemies", can not be used as freely as the Eastern bees, western bees are after all outsiders, the "ground snake" such as the wasps still need a long adaptation period, to learn the "flapping wings warning" of the Eastern bees also need a period of time, the Eastern bees and the Western bees will all form a group to increase the temperature to kill the wasps, but the clumping efficiency of the Western bees is lower than that of the Eastern bees, and the resistance to the wasps is weaker. Therefore, as the main breeding of bees, Western bees are often killed by wild wasps in whole boxes and boxes, which has become a major problem for beekeepers.
But the strong will of the Western bees when they fight is not inferior to the Eastern bees, whether it is the Eastern Bees or the Western Bees, they are worthy of our admiration.