Wing-slapping: A defensive behavior by honey bees against ants

esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

43 points·rntn··10 comments

In Japan, even the bees know martial arts.

I was puzzled earlier this week, by a bee repeatedly hovering over a flower, landing for a bit, and then hovering again. The same flower, again and again. Turns out there were a couple of small ants inside, on the petals of the narrow-necked flower. The bee would land on the style, seemingly trying to avoid touching the petals, and an ant would chase after its touches, feet and such, jaws open. Hover again, wait for the ant to move away, and repeat.

It's amusing that there exists a class of people paid to study things like this.

Meanwhile there's some kid out there being forced to dig up blood diamonds. Bizarre world.

1/3 if all foods we eat depend on bees pollinating them.

That is more than 4 trillion dollar.

Take a moment to think about that. NVIDIA, Apple, Tesla and Amazon together are less relevant than bees, assuming food prices would stay as low as they are without bees …

Also bees are dying, varoa destructor and other man made diseases are wracking havoc.

Paying people to study anything related to bees has a potential payoff so huge that it does not matter if only every 1000th discovers somthing.

Sincerely, someone doing bee research.

I stand corrected

How can she slap?

From the article's top-most paragraph:

> However, the Japanese honey bee ... repels ants by placing its wings directly in contact with intruding ants and flicking them away.

You responded to a late 2000s meme, I believe.

Wing slap! Baby, wing slap! (sung to the tune of "Glove Slap", which is sung to the tune of "Love Shack")

directly in contact with intruding ants

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