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Snuff them out

COMPILED BY ROHINI RAMAKRISHNAN

Photo: K. R. Deepak

Honey bee: Threatened by the hornets.

Cyprian honeybees use a unique application of “strength in numbers” to suffocate one of their most dangerous enemies: huge invading hornets. In late summer on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus, Oriental hornets will invade honeybee hives. The hornets are three times the bees’ size and have mandibles that can snap the smaller insects’ heads off with a single bite. Attacking hornets kill the hive’s adult occupants and eat the bee larvae. Every year beekeepers lose nearly a third of their colonies to invading hornets, said Alexandros Papachristoforou, who studied the bees for his doctorate at Aristotle University in Thessaloníki, Greece. The bees’ main defence — stinging —rarely works against the hornets, which are armored with tough plates of cuticle.

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Young World

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