Watch these giant honeybees 'shimmer' to ward off threats
Nature — it’s weird, and it’s wonderful.
Check out this video of giant honeybees showing a possible threat who's boss.
Giant honeybees, which are native to parts of Asia and Southeast Asia, have nests that are a little different from the hives you see in North America: They’re large, sometimes 1 metre in depth and 1.5 metres wide and look like a single open honeycomb.
When threatened, scientists think they’ve developed a way to “communicate” they mean business and to warn predators to stay away.
It’s called “shimmering”, a practice that involves sending waves across their open nests by flipping their abdomens upward in a coordinated motion.
It’s meant to deter threats, and it’s most common when bees spot a dark object (like an unfriendly hornet) moving against a light background under ambient light, according to a 2022 study.
The study found shimmering to be an effective defense. The authors think the movement makes the bees harder to see, possibly confusing predators. The bees lifting their abdomens may also look like they're about to sting, another tactic that could cause a hornet to hesitate before attacking.
“It might not make sense to us for an animal to build its home in the open when there are other, safer options. But giant honeybees are the second oldest known bee species,” writes Arizona State Biologist Melinda Weaver.
“So they must be doing something right. Overall, this shimmering behavior shows that the giant honeybee has developed several different strategies to scare off predators while avoiding an attack.”
Header image: File photo (Muhammad Mahdi Karim/Wikipedia GFDL 1.2