PREDATION ON THE WESTERN HONEY BEE, 
APIS MELLIFERA L., BY THE HORNET, 
VESPA TROPICA (L.) 
By Michael Burgett 1 and Pongthep Akratanakul 2 
Hornets of the genus Vespa are recognized as efficient and devas- 
tating predators of honey bees, especially in tropical and sub- 
tropical biomes. Of the four species of honey bees in the genus Apis 
only A. dorsata Fabr., the giant honey bee, appears free from attack 
by hornets (Seeley et al. 1982). De Jong (1978) reviewed the records 
of Vespa predation on A. mellifera and A. cerana Fabr. Matsurra 
and Sakagami (1973) provided a detailed description on V. man- 
darinia Smith attack behavior on A. mellifera in Japan. 
We observed the predation and ultimate destruction of a small A. 
mellifera colony by V. tropica (L.) on the Kamphaeng Saen campus 
of Kasetsart University, Nakorn Pathom, Thailand, during a four 
day period in December 1981. The honey bee colony consisted of 
four standard frames with a comb area of ca. 7,000 cm 2 in a hive 
body with a volume of 21 1. The colony entrance was restricted to 
an area of ca. 3.5 cm 2 . The colony possessed one comb approxi- 
mately one-half full of capped honey, two empty combs, one comb 
with an active brood nest and an estimated 0.5 kg of worker bees 
which occupied two combs. The brood nest was infested with the 
parasitic brood mite Tropilaelaps clareae Delfinado and Baker. 
Uninterrupted observations of hornet behavior at the colony were 
conducted on December 21 and 23 for a total of 19 h and 50 min. To 
facilitate the observations eight individual hornets were tagged on 
their thoraces with color and number coded discs. Observations 
were begun at 0730 h on the 21st and 0715 on the 23rd and con- 
tinued until after 1700 h on both days. The ambient temperature 
was 16°C at the start of observations on both days and reached a 
maximum of 25° C by mid-afternoon. 
We estimate that 25 to 35 hornets were involved in this predatory 
episode. One of us (P. A.) first noted the presence of a few hornets at 
'Department of Entomology, Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon 97331 
department of Entomology, Kasetsart University, Kamphaeng Saen, Thailand 
Manuscript received by the editor September 9, 1982. 
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