A series of photographs of the guard bee Japanese honey bee Apis cerana japonica (left) flapping its wing at a Japanese ant Tetramorium tsushimae. The bee on the left side of the photo positions its body towards the ant (a, b). The bee then turns its body and flaps its wings to slap the ant (c, d). The patted ant is flung away (e, f). By the way, the bee on the right positions its body towards another ant in (c–e), then turns its body and is in the middle of slapping the ant in (f). Credit: Ecology (2024). DOI: 10.1002/ecy.4372
A trio of ecological specialists from the National Institute for Environmental Studies in Japan discovered that Japanese bees sometimes resort to flapping their wings at ants to prevent them from entering the nest.
In their study published in the journal EcologyYugo Seko, Kiyohito Morii and Yoshiko Sakamoto filmed the nest of bees using high-speed cameras and then analyzed the results in slow motion.
Asian bees, known in Japan as Japanese bees, are known for their multifaceted approach to nest guarding. Previous research has shown they use flapping wings to blow away pests, shimmering to confuse predators and stingers to injure them – sometimes also forming into balls to kill intruders with their body heat. Some have even been found to build walls of animal feces to ward off pests and predators.
In this new effort, the researchers found another way for bees to repel small would-be intruders like ants – by slapping them as hard as possible with one or both wings.
In the videos, the researchers could see that the sentinel bee was clearly mind-slapping as it approached the tiny ant. Not only would it speed up when it moved for the slap, but it would also lean back and twist, a bit like a tennis player curling into a very hard return. And then it would hit the ant so hard that the much smaller creature would fly headfirst through the air, out of the nest, and down to the ground.
The researchers also noted that wing flapping was not always successful – sometimes the bee missed the ant, although more often than not the ant simply froze, apparently unable to figure out how to proceed. That would leave him open to another smack or some flap of the wing to dislodge him from the nest.
The research team noted that the bees sometimes tried to slap the larger ants out of the nest, but were much less successful than with the smaller ants. They suggest that bees may have started flapping their wings because it requires less energy than flapping their wings.
More information:
Yugo Seko et al, Wing-slapping: A defensive behavior of bees against ants, Ecology (2024). DOI: 10.1002/ecy.4372
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Citation: Japanese honeybees flap their wings at nest-invading ants to knock them away (2024, July 17) Retrieved July 18, 2024, from https://phys.org/news/2024-07-japanese-honeybees-invading-ants-wings . html
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