Like sports fans performing "the wave" at a stadium, honeybees can create a dazzling ripple effect by splaying their shiny wings and flicking their abdomens up and down, new research reveals.
The exact purpose of this "shimmering" phenomenon has been a source of speculation for several decades.
But a new study provides the strongest evidence to date that it is a defense mechanism aimed at repelling wasps and hornets, the bees' mortal enemies.
(Watch bees battle Japan's "hornets from hell".)
Unlike other bee species, Southeast Asian giant honeybees form "open nests" lacking outer protection.
Thousands of bees, layered several rows deep, cling to each other around a central comb to create a living hive.
This leaves them vulnerable to predators such as hornets and wasps, which hunt and feed on the bees and their honey.
Ready, Set, Wave!
Gerald Kastberger, a bee researcher at the University of Graz in Austria, and colleagues used cameras to record more than 450 interactions between bees and hornets on water towers in Nepal.
The team found that shimmering was triggered in giant honeybee colonies when hornets flew too close to the nests.
The closer the hornets flew to the hives, the stronger the shimmering became.
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