When confronted with their arch-enemy, the aggressive giant Asian hornet, the honeybees will attack it by swarming en masse around the hornet and forming what scientists call a "hot defensive bee ball" - a move unique to their species.
With up to 500 bees all vibrating their flight muscles at once, the bee ball cooks the hornet to death.
While this defensive manoeuvre has been known for some time, the mechanism behind it has been shrouded in mystery. But researchers at Japan's University of Tokyo, through study of the bees' brains, have now found that neural activity in bees taking part in the attack picks up.
(telegraph.co.uk)
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