"Hot Defensive Bee Ball"

For this year's A-Z challenge, I'm posting juicy tidbits of researchy goodness for your interest and edification. I intend to use these as story prompts for the terrifying writing challenge Story a Day in May. You may use them however you wish.

When I'm looking for a model for an alien species, I find insects especially useful. I'm currently working on a story that models an alien planet's biology after certain creatures direct from the world of nightmare parasitic insects. Lately I've been thinking about bees.

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There has been some fuss (will not pun on "buzz") about the global decline of honey bee populations lately. Recent research suggests that certain pesticides interfere with the bees' ability to navigate back to the hive, and that the increase in disease in bee populations might also be due to pesticide use. This is bad because, as Albert Einstein famously noted, "If the bee disappears from the surface of the earth, man would have no more than four years to live. No more bees, no more pollination … no more men!"

I was going to write about that, but then I came across this little gem, and I couldn't resist, because OMG BEES ARE TERRIFYING!

From the Telegraph's attention-grabbing article: "Japanese Honeybees Cook Enemy in 'Hot Defensive Bee Ball.'"

"When the hornet, the Japanese honeybee's natural enemy, enters a colony, the bees quickly form a 'hot defensive bee ball,' trapping the hornet inside and heating it up to 46 degrees C (115F) with their collective body heat," said Atsushi Ugajin, a University of Tokyo graduate student. 

He said that while the high temperature phase lasts about 20 minutes, it often takes up to an hour before the hornet dies inside the ball.

Now there's a sci fi / fantasy creature defense mechanism I can work with.

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