{"id":604504,"date":"2026-04-15T00:05:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T00:05:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/604504\/"},"modified":"2026-04-15T00:05:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T00:05:13","slug":"watch-these-giant-honeybees-shimmer-to-ward-off-threats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/604504\/","title":{"rendered":"Watch these giant honeybees &#8216;shimmer&#8217; to ward off threats"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Published on Apr. 14, 2026, 5:43 PM<\/p>\n<p>Nature \u2014 it\u2019s weird, and it\u2019s wonderful.<\/p>\n<p>Check out this video of giant honeybees showing a possible threat who&#8217;s boss.<\/p>\n<p>Giant honeybees, which are native to parts of Asia and Southeast Asia, have nests that are a little different from the hives you see in North America: They\u2019re large, sometimes <a href=\"https:\/\/beeaware.org.au\/archive-pest\/giant-honey-bees\/#ad-image-0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">1 metre in depth and 1.5 metres wide<\/a> and look like a single open honeycomb.<\/p>\n<p>When threatened, scientists think they\u2019ve developed a way to \u201ccommunicate\u201d they mean business and to warn predators to stay away.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s called \u201cshimmering\u201d, a practice that involves sending waves across their open nests by flipping their abdomens upward in a coordinated motion.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s meant to deter threats, and it\u2019s most common when bees spot a dark object (like an unfriendly hornet) moving against a light background under ambient light, according to a <a href=\"https:\/\/journals.biologists.com\/jeb\/article\/225\/17\/jeb244716\/276503\/Defensive-shimmering-responses-in-Apis-dorsata-are?guestAccessKey=\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">2022 study<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The study found shimmering to be an effective defense. The authors think the movement makes the bees harder to see, possibly confusing predators. The bees lifting their abdomens may also look like they&#8217;re about to sting, another tactic that could cause a hornet to hesitate before attacking.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Published on Apr. 14, 2026, 5:43 PM Nature \u2014 it\u2019s weird, and it\u2019s wonderful. Check out this video&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":604505,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[49,48,66,323],"class_list":{"0":"post-604504","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=604504"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604504\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/604505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=604504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=604504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=604504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}