I Scream. You Scream. Bees Scream, Too.
In a paper published in the journal Royal Society Open Science, researchers describe the Asian honeybee’s unique acoustic signal, which is called an antipredator pipe. The researchers colloquially refer to it as a “bee scream.”
Asian honeybees use an impressive array of strategies to protect nests from hornet attacks, although little is understood about how antipredator signals coordinate defences. We compared vibroacoustic signalling and defensive responses of Apis cerana colonies that were attacked by either the group-hunting giant hornet Vespa soror or the smaller, solitary-hunting hornet Vespa velutina. Apis cerana colonies produced hisses, brief stop signals and longer pipes under hornet-free conditions. However, hornet-attack stimuli—and V. soror workers in particular—triggered dramatic increases in signalling rates within colonies
Read more here: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.211215
Or here: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/