Australian bees wage brutal hive wars that last for MONTHS

Forget Game of Thrones, Australia’s native bees have mastered the art of war. New research has found that they sacrifice thousands of worker bees in month-long battles in order to take over neighbouring hives.

Australia’s native sugar bag bee, Tetragonula carbonaria, is well known around the Australian city of Brisbane for forming large fighting swarms around this time of year. However, up until now, nobody really knew what the purpose of these swarms were.

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The research team spent five years watching battles around Brisbane, and saw 46 of these all-or-nothing take-overs - and they’re even more epic than they imagined.

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These brutal bee wars can take weeks and even months, the study revealed, with wave after wave of suicidal worker bees being sent in to break down the numbers of the defending hive - leaving a carpet of thousands of dead and dying bees on the ground (as you can see in the footage below).

Though they do not have a sting, the bees use their strong jaws to lock onto each other in mortal combat - something that results in both fighters eventually dying.

"Neither the attacker nor defender survives these lethal contests," said Dr Cunningham in a press release. “So in the end, it comes down to a sheer numbers game as to who wins."



[link to sciencealert.com.au]