[leafygreene]

I spent three months in the Deschutes National Forest this summer, drought conditions throughout. I watched everyday as honeybees and yellow jackets happily shared a pan of water I'd leave out for them. The third guest was an interloper assassin wasp called the bald-faced hornet (Dolichovespula maculata), and it loved drowning honeybees. If this hornet was around, I'd return to a pan full of dead honeybees.

At first I asked myself, "Can honeybees really be such poor swimmers?" Then I noticed the hornet essentially pushing them into the water (shocking them? zapping them, disabiling them?) and later eating them.

I don't know if this hornet is an invasive species or if the predator-prey relationship is already known, but a single hornet can wipe out tens of bees a day. A contributor to honeybee collapse? Maybe.