I just finished watching 6 minutes documentary on how Japanese bees and European bees are defending themselves against hornets. Well, I'm amazed by the coordination performed by the Japanese bees in order to effectively defeat the hornets.
Basically, the Japanese bees will engulf the hornet collectively and starts to pile up upon the predator into a densed ball, leaving the predator with no space for escaping. At the same time the bees produces high frequency vibration by vibrating their muscles. The vibrations will eventually produce an escalating heat at the core of the ball (the predator).
When the temperature at the core reaches 45 °C, the predator cannot stand with the heat and die. Remarkably, bees survive up to 48 °C! I hope the following video will give you a better insight of bees' defense mechanism and better appreciation. Enjoy!
[via Hemmy.net]
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