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These bees cook a wasp in a heat ball.

Japanese honeybees can surround a predatory wasp and raise the bee-ball core to roughly the wasp's lethal temperature.

Fun Fact Doodles
Fun Fact Doodles@Clementine
These bees do not sting the wasp first. They pack around it and heat the whole ball.
A primary study measured about 32 Apis cerana workers raising a Vespa velutina bee-ball core to 45.6 C; the wasp's measured lethal thermal limit was about 45.7 C, while the bees' was about 50.7 C. 1 The measurement applies to those species and setup, not every bee-versus-hornet fight. 23
#weirdscience #animalbehavior #entomology #FunFactDoodles

References

  1. 1
    Heat-balling wasps by honeybeesdoi.org
  2. 2
    Heat-balling wasps by honeybees - PubMedncbi.nlm.nih.gov
  3. 3
    Fearless Little Honeybees Outwit World's Largest Hornetnhmu.utah.edu

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