Sounding The Alarm: How Honey Bees Alert Their Hive to Attacks by Giant 'Murder' Hornets
Published:18 Nov.2021 Source:Wellesley College
For the first time, the unique sounds honey bees (Apis cerana) use to alert members of their hive when giant "murder" hornets attack have been documented. These signals -- including a newly described "antipredator pipe" -- are the focus of new research from Wellesley College associate professor of biological sciences Heather Mattila and her colleagues, whose findings were published in Royal Society Open Science.
Mattila and an international team of researchers observed that honey bees sound the alarm to their fellow bees to defend themselves against attacks by giant hornets (Vespa soror), which can wipe out whole colonies. Bees make sounds, and antipredator pipes in particular, at a frenetic pace when giant hornets are directly outside their hive. It's a distress signal so distinctive that it gave Mattila the chills when she heard it. "The pipes share traits in common with a lot of mammalian alarm signals, so as a mammal hearing them, there's something that is instantly recognizable as communicating danger," she said. "It feels like a universal experience."