Despite their impressive stinging defense, bees are a high-value food source for a wide array of animals. For social species, their colonies contain a massive store of honey and nutrient-rich larvae. This wealth attracts predators across the animal kingdom, from microscopic parasites to large mammals. Each predator employs specialized tactics to overcome the bees’ formidable collective defense, driving specialized hunting techniques and complex social protection behaviors.
Predators from the Insect World
The insect world holds specialized bee hunters, often using stealth or paralysis to bypass the bee’s sting. Solitary beewolves, a type of wasp, actively hunt for bees to provision their subterranean nests. The female beewolf stings a bee, paralyzing it, and then carries the prey back to a burrow where she lays an egg on it for her developing larva.
Other invertebrates employ ambush tactics, waiting motionless on flowers where foraging bees are preoccupied. Robber flies snatch bees mid-air and inject a neurotoxic saliva that instantly paralyzes the victim. Similarly, ambush bugs use their camouflaged bodies and powerful, raptorial forelegs to lie in wait, quickly grasping the bee and injecting digestive enzymes through their sharp proboscis.
Colony-level attackers, such as yellow jackets, become aggressive in late summer when other food sources dwindle. These wasps raid bee colonies primarily for the protein-rich brood and stored honey. A strong honeybee colony can successfully guard its entrance, but a weaker one is often overwhelmed, leading to the destruction of the hive and consumption of its contents.
Birds That Hunt Bees
Avian predators rely on aerial agility to catch bees on the wing. Birds like bee-eaters, found primarily in Africa and Eurasia, consume large numbers of stinging insects, which can make up over 70% of their diet. They catch their prey mid-flight and return to a perch where they repeatedly strike the bee against a hard surface to remove the stinger and the venom sac, allowing the bird to safely consume its meal.
Other opportunistic fliers, such as kingbirds and flycatchers, snatch bees from the air using a technique called sallying, where they dart out from a perch to intercept passing insects. The summer tanager is a notable example in the Americas that employs a similar technique to bee-eaters. After catching a bee, the tanager rubs the insect on a branch to neutralize or remove the stinger before eating it. Even larger raptors, like the honey buzzard, attack hives directly to feed on the larvae and honeycomb.
Mammals and Other Larger Hive Attackers
Larger animals generally target the entire colony rather than hunting individual bees, focusing on the nutrient density of the brood and stored honey. Bears, such as black bears and brown bears, are hive attackers, driven by the strong scent of honey and bee larvae. Their thick fur provides protection against stings, and they use their strength to rip apart natural tree cavities or man-made hives to access the comb.
The honey badger, or ratel, found in Africa and Asia, raids bee nests, enduring hundreds of stings to reach the contents. Their loose, tough skin and thick coat offer significant resistance to the bees’ stingers, enabling them to consume the brood and honey. Other predators, like skunks, scratch at the hive entrance at night, luring guard bees out one by one. As the bees emerge, the skunk quickly snaps them up, targeting a spot where the stingers cannot easily penetrate its face.
How Bees Protect Themselves
Bee colonies employ collective defenses that extend beyond the individual sting. When a threat is detected, guard bees release an alarm pheromone, a chemical signal that quickly mobilizes nestmates to the defense. This pheromone also marks the intruder, causing subsequent attackers to concentrate their stings on the same location.
For the Asian honeybee, a specialized defense against large hornet scouts is the “hot bee ball” maneuver. Hundreds of worker bees swarm the hornet, completely enveloping it. By vibrating their flight muscles, the bees collectively raise the temperature inside the ball to lethal levels, typically around 46 degrees Celsius, which cooks the invader to death without harming the bees. Colonies also reinforce their structure using propolis, a sticky resin collected from plants to seal gaps, narrow the hive entrance for easier defense, and line the inside of the nest with an antimicrobial barrier.