SoylentNews

[Y]ears ago, researchers discovered that foraging European honey bees, A. mellifera, make “stop signals” in the hive if they’ve encountered a spider, for example, on a flower. They head-butt individual bees and give a brief, vibrating pulse—an alarm that tells the others not to travel to the dangerous food source.

[When Asian bees were attacked by hornets] they made stop signals that increased in pitch according to the size of the predator ... And when facing wasps at the entrance to the hive, the guard bees and returning foragers made distinctive and lengthy stop signals that let others know danger lurked outside ... In response, foragers ready to leave the hive froze in place, remaining in the safety of the nest, while nest defenders formed a ball around the wasp, and attempted to kill it with their combined body heat.