Bee colonies in Brisbane (australia) are waging war for months on end, sending waves upon waves of workers who collide, grapple and die.
A genetic analysis of the battlefield fatalities showed that two different species of stingless bees were fighting for control of a single hive.
The attacking swarm eventually took over the hive entirely, placing a new queen of its own in the usurped nest.
It was originally inhabited by a bee species native to the area around Brisbane, called Tetragonula carbonaria.
“They live in the hollows of trees and other cavities, so they’re quite common in and around the city,” said the study’s lead author Dr Paul Cunningham, from the Queensland University of Technology.
“And around this time of year, people see these big swarms outside the trees or around their houses. They’re fighting swarms,”.
These battling bees are the workers – the female members of a colony that cannot reproduce but collect pollen and, apparently, sometimes wage war to take over another hive’s resources.
