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Hive beetle disarms bees with their own pheromones
* 10:01 07 May 2007
Even honeybees are vulnerable to hackers. Hives normally run a tight security detail, but the small hive beetle Aethina tumida still slips past the defences. How they do it has been a mystery since they were first discovered infesting hives and killing off bees in the US and Australia in 1998.
Now a study led by Baldwyn Torto of the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology, Nairobi, Kenya, has found that the beetles turn European honeybees' alarm pheromones against them. The beetles are highly sensitive to isopentyl acetate and detect it in the low levels bees produce under moderate stress.
The beetles carry a strain of yeast that produces the same alarm chemical. When levels of the chemical in the hive go up, worker bees become disoriented and yet more beetles arrive for dinner.
Journal reference: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0702813104)
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