Just when you thought it was safe to go back out of the water...
"The 7 1/2 -centimetre-long adult insects -- up to five times the size of a typical wasp -- can be lethal, and kill about 40 people every year. They also attack and kill whole hives of bees..." http://salinella.bio.uottawa.ca/BIO3323/Lectures/Assignment%202001/bio3323_lectA ssign_Vesp.htm
"European honeybees are a favorite target of the giant hornets. Commonly used by Japanese farmers, the honeybees are not native to Japan and have no natural defenses against an onslaught of giant hornets. " http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/10/1025_021025_GiantHornets.html
[Vespa mandarinia rates of killing ]"Apis mellifera...[range] as high as 40 per minute....If a colony of about 30.000 European honeybees (Apis mellifera) were to be attacked by 30 giant hornets (Vespa mandarinia japonica) they would be wiped out in 3 hours...
Distribution:
SE part of Asian Russia: southern regions of Primorskii Krai, Korea, China, Japan (In Japanese: Ohsuzumebati), Indochina, Nepal, India (Kurzenko, 1995),..."[Note: some of these are quite cold; the Primorskii is home to the Russian bees first introduced for Varroa resistance" http://www.muenster.org/hornissenschutz/manda.htm
Vespa mandarinica "....with bodies
no bigger than 5cm, can fly 50 miles in a single day at 20 miles per hour.." www.vaam-power.com/vaam_info.html
"The Japanese honey bee, Apis cerana japonica Rad. (Acj), is known to perform a unique thermal defense against hornets such as Vespa mandarina (Vm) and V. simillima xanthoptera. The other interesting defensive behaviors of Acj are 1) cessation of foraging and hiding inside the hive and 2) shriving off [with mandibles] the [hornet's[ forage-site marking pheromone deposited from sternite gland (van der Vecht gland)...": http://www.faculty.ucr.edu/~insects/physiolecol/sm_defense.html
"When attacked by white-faced hornets (Vespa mandarina japonica F. Smith), honeybees (Apis cerana japonica (Fabricius)form defensive balls around them, each ball consisting of about 400 tightly aggregated individuals. The interiors of these balls quickly rise to 47°C, killing the hornets but not the bees whose upper lethal temperature is 4850°C. If the honeybees fail to kill the first hornet attackers, however, the latter, by releasing phermones, recruit their nestmates and these overpower the bee colony with sheer numbers: 30,000bees can be killed in their hive by a group of only 3040 hornets" http://216.239.41.104/search?q=cache:wOokWN6O1DEJ
est.cabweb.org/PDF/BER/BER87-5/551.pdf+vespa+mandarina&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
"...They extracted a number of volatile chemicals from a pheromone of the worlds largest hornet, Vespa mandarina and found that this extract caused intense alarm and defensive behaviour amongst the hornets. The chemicals triggering the behaviour (2-pentanol, 3-methyle1-1-butanol and 1-methylbuti1 3-methylbutanoate) are found in some cosmetics and fragrances as well as some manufactured foods." http://www.beedata.com/apis-uk/newsletters/apis-uk101103.htm.
Sweet Dreams...
Brian Cady
[This message has been edited by briancady413 (edited April 22, 2004).]
"The 7 1/2 -centimetre-long adult insects -- up to five times the size of a typical wasp -- can be lethal, and kill about 40 people every year. They also attack and kill whole hives of bees..." http://salinella.bio.uottawa.ca/BIO3323/Lectures/Assignment%202001/bio3323_lectA ssign_Vesp.htm
"European honeybees are a favorite target of the giant hornets. Commonly used by Japanese farmers, the honeybees are not native to Japan and have no natural defenses against an onslaught of giant hornets. " http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/10/1025_021025_GiantHornets.html
[Vespa mandarinia rates of killing ]"Apis mellifera...[range] as high as 40 per minute....If a colony of about 30.000 European honeybees (Apis mellifera) were to be attacked by 30 giant hornets (Vespa mandarinia japonica) they would be wiped out in 3 hours...
Distribution:
SE part of Asian Russia: southern regions of Primorskii Krai, Korea, China, Japan (In Japanese: Ohsuzumebati), Indochina, Nepal, India (Kurzenko, 1995),..."[Note: some of these are quite cold; the Primorskii is home to the Russian bees first introduced for Varroa resistance" http://www.muenster.org/hornissenschutz/manda.htm
Vespa mandarinica "....with bodies
no bigger than 5cm, can fly 50 miles in a single day at 20 miles per hour.." www.vaam-power.com/vaam_info.html
"The Japanese honey bee, Apis cerana japonica Rad. (Acj), is known to perform a unique thermal defense against hornets such as Vespa mandarina (Vm) and V. simillima xanthoptera. The other interesting defensive behaviors of Acj are 1) cessation of foraging and hiding inside the hive and 2) shriving off [with mandibles] the [hornet's[ forage-site marking pheromone deposited from sternite gland (van der Vecht gland)...": http://www.faculty.ucr.edu/~insects/physiolecol/sm_defense.html
"When attacked by white-faced hornets (Vespa mandarina japonica F. Smith), honeybees (Apis cerana japonica (Fabricius)form defensive balls around them, each ball consisting of about 400 tightly aggregated individuals. The interiors of these balls quickly rise to 47°C, killing the hornets but not the bees whose upper lethal temperature is 4850°C. If the honeybees fail to kill the first hornet attackers, however, the latter, by releasing phermones, recruit their nestmates and these overpower the bee colony with sheer numbers: 30,000bees can be killed in their hive by a group of only 3040 hornets" http://216.239.41.104/search?q=cache:wOokWN6O1DEJ
"...They extracted a number of volatile chemicals from a pheromone of the worlds largest hornet, Vespa mandarina and found that this extract caused intense alarm and defensive behaviour amongst the hornets. The chemicals triggering the behaviour (2-pentanol, 3-methyle1-1-butanol and 1-methylbuti1 3-methylbutanoate) are found in some cosmetics and fragrances as well as some manufactured foods." http://www.beedata.com/apis-uk/newsletters/apis-uk101103.htm.
Sweet Dreams...
Brian Cady
[This message has been edited by briancady413 (edited April 22, 2004).]