Hornets vs. Bees

If those bees would attack the hornets half as hard as they used to do me trying to walk in my house, the bees would have won in a landslide.

 

pwned?

 

Not just pwned. We're talking complete and utter domination.

 

Yeah, I saw this before. The bee's stingers just can't penetrate the hornet's armor. "All too easy."

Um yeah. When you're on the poor end of a 1 to 1,000 advantage, and proceed to **** them up, I'd say you pwned them.

 

Yeah I've seen this before too, damn what kind of hornets are those?

 

Not the New Orleans Hornets, that's for sure...

 

Nevermind, it looks like they are Giant Japanese Hornets. Whew! Good thing they don't live here in the U.S.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/10/1025_021025_GiantHornets.html

It looks as if these are European honeybees that are getting attacked. Japanese honeybees have a defense mechanism against this sort of thing.

*

The Japanese Honeybee's Thermal Defense
The Japanese giant hornet, Vespa mandarinia japonica, preys on other species of bees and wasps. When a solitary hunter finds a nest, it marks it with a secretion from its van der Vecht gland. Other hornets in the area congregate to the area, and they begin a mass attack on the colony. While they are efficient at wiping out hives of the introduced European honeybee Apis mellifera (they are killed at rates as high as 40 per minute), the native Japanese honeybee, Apis cerana japonica, has an interesting defense against the predatory hornet! The Japanese honeybees can detect the hornet's secretion, and attack incoming hornets en masse. With approximately 500 honeybees surrounding the hornet in a tight ball, the temperature within the cluster rises to 47º C (117º F), which is above the upper lethal limit range of 44-46 degrees for the hornet. This temperature is too high for the hornet, which quickly expires, but does not harm the honeybees.This temperature does not aversely affect the honeybees because their upper lethal limit is slightly higher, 48-50 degrees.

 

If that's the same clip I'm thinking of, it's off a special on the Discovery Channel or National Geographic I think. It's been running for a couple of years and has been posted here in the past. The coolest thing about that whole documentary was the "thermal defense system" that Pun just posted. That was just wild when they showed it.

 

Yeah, I learned about the heat defense system the bees have, but I don't think I've ever seen it in action. It's gotta be hella wicked.