Post #14200

Eagle-Buzzard: Alone against a poisonous army. This bird crushes beehives every day Who will win? 60,000 poisonous flying insects that know how to work in a team and sacrifice themselves for the sake of the team. OR A bird the size of one and a half crows? If it were any other bird, I would bet on the bees to win, and I would also advise you. But today in the red corner of the ring there is a honey-buzzard eagle, and for him these striped insects are one tooth long! More precisely, one beak. I think there is no need to explain why the honey beetle was called the honey beetle. The share of bumblebees, wasps, hornets and bees in its diet can reach 80%! There is only a nuance - it does not eat adult insects encased in chitin, but honey, larvae and pupae hidden in the very depths of the nest. . I just tore out a piece of a high-rise building to feed the chicks. The honey beetle is capable of breaking through the defenses of any yellow-striped nest, and it doesn’t matter whether they rely on numbers, hide underground, or the nest is guarded by 500 selected hornets the size of half a finger. But here’s what’s unexpected: the honey buzzard itself does not have absolute protection from its own prey. Yes, its dense plumage fits perfectly to the body and is real scaly armor, but getting under it is more than possible. Yes, the honey buzzard has high resistance to the components of bee venom, but this resistance is not absolute. A dozen injections - and the honey buzzard will fall, just like any of us would fall. The honey beetle's strength lies not so much in the defense mechanisms it uses, but rather in its competent attack tactics. Its main advantage over bees is speed and the element of surprise. And in order not to lose them, he must carry out the attack in just a couple of minutes. And the honey buzzard copes. He quickly swoops down on the bees' house, tears it apart with his powerful claws and beak, greedily swallows the larvae and retreats before most of the nest's air force has time to figure out what actually happened. And it was his brazen, predatory style of getting food that made the honey buzzard special. It is Europe's only natural barrier to the invasive Asian hornets. About 20 years ago, they escaped beyond their natural habitat and entered Western Europe, where they found a real paradise for themselves. Local bees cannot defend themselves from the hornets' war squads, and their hives are destroyed one after another. And even hardy and strong, but clumsy bears give in to their nests. Nobody is able to stop him. Nobody except the wasp. The honey beetle's rapid strike abilities and effective armor give it enough time to eat a significant portion of the nest's offspring, destroy them, and escape unharmed. And some pairs of honey beetles are so good at this that they can destroy up to 60 nests of Asian hornets in 1 season! They are humanity's only allies in protecting European bees from final defeat. And for this al