An interesting slap, huh!
A team of environmental specialists at Japan’s National Institute for Environmental Studies has discovered that Japanese honeybees sometimes slap ants with their wings to keep them from entering their nest. This study, published in the journal Ecology by Yugo Seko, Kiyohito Morii, and Yoshiko Sakamoto, involved filming a honeybee nest with high-speed cameras and analyzing the footage in slow motion.
New in @ESAEcology‘s #TheScientificNaturalist: When ants try to invade Japanese honey bee hives, the bees resort to violence with a previously undescribed behavior, “wing-slapping”https://t.co/xEepE4IewF pic.twitter.com/YqkFNrLzP0
— Ecology (@ESAEcology) July 10, 2024
Japanese honeybees employ various methods to guard their nest. Previous research has shown that they use wing flapping to blow away pests, shimmering to confuse predators, stingers to injure intruders, and even form heat-generating balls to kill invaders. Some have even built walls made of animal feces to keep pests and predators at bay.
In this study, the researchers observed another defensive tactic: the bees use their wings to slap small invaders like ants. The videos showed that guard bees would speed up as they approached an ant, lean back, twist, and then slap the ant with one or both wings. This action sent the much smaller creature flying through the air and off the nest.
Japanese Honeybees Use Wing Slaps to Repel Nest-Invading Ants https://t.co/DI1rYAW5hG #JapaneseHoneybees #DefensiveBehavior #WingSlapping
— Wiobs (@wiob_S) July 17, 2024
However, the researchers noted that wing slapping was not always successful. Sometimes the bee would miss, and other times the ant would freeze in place, seemingly confused and vulnerable to another slap or wing flapping to push it off the nest. The honeybees were less successful when trying to slap larger ants. The researchers suggest that the bees may have adopted wing slapping because it uses less energy than continuous wing flapping.
Key Points:
- Japanese honeybees use wing slapping to repel ants from their nests.
- The discovery was made by filming honeybee nests with high-speed cameras and analyzing the footage.
- Honeybees use various defensive tactics, including wing flapping, shimmering, stinging, and heat-generating balls.
- Wing slapping sends small ants flying off the nest but is less effective against larger ants.
- Wing slapping may be favored by bees because it uses less energy than wing flapping.
Lap Fu Ip – Reprinted with permission of Whatfinger News
