Rare photo captures the exact moment a bee leaves its stinger in a man's arm

By JANE BUNCE

Stung: In the first shot, the doomed bee can be seen embedding its stinger into the beekeeper's arm

The exact moment that a bee stings a man and zooms away - leaving its stinger and abdominal tissue trailing behind - has been captured on camera.
The images illustrate with brutal clarity why a bee cannot normally survive after stinging someone.
The photo shows beekeeper Eric Mussen at the University of California’s honey bee research facility, with the doomed bee’s stinger embedded into his arm.
‘As far as I know, nobody's been able to record anything like this,’ Photographer Kathy Keatley Garvey, part of the University of California’s communications team, told the Sacremento Bee.
Ms Garvey said she had only ever seen the phenomenon of the abdominal tissue trailing behind a honeybee as an illustration in a textbook.

Winning view: This photograph, titled The Sting, took first place in the Association for Communication Excellence awards¿ feature photo category

‘The bee is tugging a long strand of abdominal tissue as it tries to pull away,’ Ms Garvey says. ‘Most stings are a clean break. In fact, every bee sting I’ve ever had – about 15 or so – was a clean break.’ She took the photo while examining a hive with Mr Mussen during the pair’s lunch hour.
The bee keeper realised he was about to be stung and suggested to Ms Garvey that she get her camera ready. She started snapping away and managed four shots of the bee in action. One photograph, titled The Sting, took first place in the Association for Communication Excellence awards’ feature photo category on June 11.

Attack: The bee most likely attacked to protect its hive, which the victim and photographer had been examining

Ms Garvey said that some internet commentators had suggested that she should have put the camera down to help her friend.
‘What most people don't realise is that getting stung by a bee is no big deal to beekeepers. It happens thousands of times throughout the country every single day,’ Ms Garvey wrote on her blog.

Escaped: The bee keeper realised he was about to be stung and urged his friend to grab her camera. She had time to take four shots before the bee flew away, leaving its abdominal tissue behind

source: dailymail

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Massacre in the hive: Amazing footage of 30 giant Japanese hornets slaughtering 30,000 tiny honeybees to eat their young

By GAVIN ALLEN

Fight! A poor honeybee (left) comes face to face with a giant Japanese hornet on the doorstep of its own hive in the prelude to a massacre

Tens of thousands are dead, hundreds more of the dying lie writhing on the battlefield, powerless to protect their children.
These horrifying and yet fascinating scenes are the highlights of a three-hour battle between just 30 giant Japanese hornets and 30,000 European honeybees.
The video, from a National Geographic documentary called Hornets From Hell, shows a full-scale attack on the honeybees' comb in order that the hornets can get at their larvae.

Slaughter: Thousands of honeybee corpses litter the ground beneath the hive as the hornets hover over the entrance to the hive to continue the killing

The mass slaughter is possible because the European honeybees did not grow up around the Japanese Hornets and thus have no defence against them.
Vespa velutina - the hornet's Latin name - is believed to have hit Europe in 2004 after hitching a ride to France on some pot plants transported from China.
In Asia, honeybees have learned to encircle an intruder and, by flapping their wings, cause it to overheat and die. But European bees have not had enough time to evolve an effective tactic.

Natural selection: A hornet drags a honeybee larvae from the comb and eats it, turning the meat into a gooey paste which it can feed to its own offspring

The hornets begin their attack by hovering in front of a beehive, picking off single honeybees, decapitating them and stripping off their wings and legs before making off with the 'meat ball', taking it back to the nest to feed their young.
Adult hornets chew the flesh of their victims into a sticky liquid that it feeds to its offspring.
However, the hornets then step up their attack, emitting a chemical rallying cry that indicates that return flights to the nest must stop.

Learn to share your food: After the massacre two exhausted and overheating hornets are seen sharing liquids to regain some energy

They they concentrate of the slaughter and with the honeybee stings simply not powerful enough to wound the hornets, up to 40 honeybees a minute can be killed.
After the massacre the hornets exchange liquids with each other to boost their energy.
They they fly unopposed into the comb to feed on the succulent and nutritious flesh of the gestating honeybee larvae.
The Japanese hornet is four times the size of our native honeybees and its sting has been compared to a hot nail being hammered into the body. They can fly up to 60 miles with a top speed of around 25 miles per hour.



source: dailymail

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Born to bee royal: Scientists find that queens and workers have their destinies in their cells

By JESSICA SATHERLEY

Larger than life: A queen bee surrounded by worker bees. Scientists found that their destines are pre-determined

The caste system which sees a honey bee either become a queen or a mere worker is pre-determined in larvae before they are born, researchers have found.

Previously, it was thought that queens were 'chosen' from among normal larvae and 'fed' royal jelly to 'crown' them queen. Royal jelly is a protein-rich secretion sometimes eaten by humans as health supplement.

But it seems that as newly-hatched bees lie worm-like in their hive during the early stages of life, their destiny is already mapped out.


Short life span: Worker bees live for six to seven weeks while the queen lives for between one and two years

Scientists from China and Ethiopia have been studying the honey bees and looked at proteins inside the cells of their larvae.

Scientist Jianke Li of China and colleagues found there are major differences, during the early stages of life, in the activity of proteins in the mitochondria – the structures that produce energy for cells - between those bees destined for a royal existence, and those born for the humdrum life of a drone.

The differences included changes in the amounts of protein produced in cells and how the proteins acted.

source: dailymail

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15-month-old puppy dies after horror attack by swarm of bees

By DAILY MAIL REPORTER

So innocent: 15-month-old Sara was playing in a communal garden when she accidentally knocked over a hive causing the bees inside to attack


A dog died after being stung more than 100 times by bees from a neighbour’s hive.

Keeley Connolly’s 15-month-old German shepherd, Sara, was playing in the communal
garden when she was set upon by bees from neighbour Susan Mowforth’s hive.

Former stockbroker Mrs Connolly, 44, found the distressed animal at her door and let her into the house.

Within seconds, her living room was filled with bees.


Dangers: Council inspectors check the hives in neighbour Sue Mowforth's garden where Sara was attacked by the agitated swarm


The mother of one tried to drive Sara to the vet, but had to stop when her car filled with the angry swarm.

Sara was given ice blankets and kept under 24-hour care, but was put down after a plasma transfusion resulted in internal bleeding.

Mrs Connolly, who lives with husband Grant and their six-year-old daughter, Sam, in Andover, Hampshire, wants beekeepers to be more careful about where they put their hives. She said: ‘The vet said they had never seen a dog stung so many times.

‘The veterinary staff were distressed because of the amount of pain Sara had been in.
'After the operation we got a phone call saying it had gone well but then she got worse again and the vet said we should put her down because they didn't think she would pull through.'

She added: ‘Our daughter has not shown much emotion but her teacher says she keeps talking about bees and drawing pictures of Sara.


Devastated: Owners Grant and Keeley Connolly, right, made the agonising decision to have Sara put down following the attack


‘Bees do not attack unless they are under threat and after the dog was stung I found that one of the hives had been knocked over.’

'After what happened the dog shot off home. The bees are kept very discreetly. This is a campaign of harassment against me. I have not decided whether to keep the bees.'

Keeping bees has become a popular hobby in recent years. The number of registered hives has doubled to 80,000 since 2007.

There are no rules preventing hives being kept in public places but owners are expected to ensure the bees do not pose a threat to humans.

source : dailymail

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