Bee-hawking by the wasp, Vespa velutina, on the honeybees Apis cerana and A. mellifera

- Tan, K, Radloff, Sarah E, Li, J J, Hepburn, H Randall, Yang, Ming-Xian, Zhang, L J, Neumann, Peter

Title
Bee-hawking by the wasp, Vespa velutina, on the honeybees Apis cerana and A. mellifera
Creator
Tan, K, Radloff, Sarah E, Li, J J, Hepburn, H Randall, Yang, Ming-Xian, Zhang, L J, Neumann, Peter
Date
2007
Type
text
Type
Article
Identifier
vital:6941
Identifier
http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1011965
Description
The vespine wasps, Vespa velutina, specialise in hawking honeybee foragers returning to their nests. We studied their behaviour in China using native Apis cerana and introduced A. mellifera colonies. When the wasps are hawking, A. cerana recruits threefold more guard bees to stave off predation than A. mellifera. The former also utilises wing shimmering as a visual pattern disruption mechanism, which is not shown by A. mellifera. A. cerana foragers halve the time of normal flight needed to dart into the nest entrance, while A. mellifera actually slows down in sashaying flight manoeuvres. V. velutina preferentially hawks A. mellifera foragers when both A. mellifera and A. cerana occur in the same apiary. The pace of wasp-hawking was highest in mid-summer but the frequency of hawking wasps was three times higher at A. mellifera colonies than at the A. cerana colonies. The wasps were taking A. mellifera foragers at a frequency eightfold greater than A. cerana foragers. The final hawking success rates of the wasps were about three times higher for A. mellifera foragers than for A. cerana. The relative success of native A. cerana over European A. mellifera in thwarting predation by the wasp V. velutina is interpreted as the result of co-evolution between the Asian wasp and honeybee, respectively.
Format
5 pages, pdf
Language
English
Relation
Tan, K. and Radloff, S.E. and Li, J.J. and Hepburn, H.R. and Yang, Ming-Xian and Zhang, L.J. and Neumann, P. (2007) Bee-hawking by the wasp, Vespa velutina, on the honeybees Apis cerana and A. mellifera. Naturwissenschaften, 94 (6). pp. 469-472. Available: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00114-006-0210-2
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Radloff, Sarah (Prof)
Hepburn, H Randall (Prof Emeritus)
RU Department of Statistics
SDG 15. Life On Land
RU Department of Zoology and Entomology
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