Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/10/13/watch-hostile-bee-snatches-unsuspecting-bumblebee.html
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Trying to understand it would be territorial? Are flowers a limited resource for the bees? It thought it was the other way around…
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Christ, what an asshole!
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I have been observing honey bees, native ground bees, paper wasps, bumble bees, assassin wasps, mud daubers, and in one terrifying moment a tarantula hawk, for many years. While not too familiar with the wool carder bee, I agree with Mazzy due to the wide abdomen on the attacking bee.
Worth noting though, there are robber flies in the genus laphria that look “exactly like” bumble bees. They attack and feed on honey bees and paper wasps, among others. These robber flies will (typically) either have a thinner abdomen.
or a shorter/more blunt one, especially the males:
There are quite a variety of robber flies.
Yes and YES!
I have especially noticed in the very short lived cycle of an open squash flower, numerous bees fighting it out. Sometimes a bumble bee will land in there and the honey bees crawling around deeper in the flower, being blocked out by the bumble bee, making a very loud buzz to get it to go away, or even honey bees that might look slightly different, three or more diving into a squash flower and buzzing loudly at each other.
I also have an apricot tree which has only given us a decent yield fruit this year after a decade. It has flowered in years past. There is a unique blond(e) bumble bee that shows up and will ONLY feed on apricot flowers. Possibly it would take to other pit fruits that we don’t grow. It is actually sad to watch that one flying around the flowerless tree for hours checking every branch in hopes of one appearing. With all kinds of flowers open throughout the garden, it ignores those.
So on both sides of the evolutionary ladder, flowers have evolved to attract specialty pollinators and pollinators have evolved to get nectar that others either cannot reach or don’t understand to be available to them.
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Wait–so where are these kidnapper bees taking them? WHAT HAPPENS TO THE KIDNAPPED BEES?
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The attacker is a yellowjacket wasp.
They have to pay up in BzzCoin.
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Don’t worry, they’ll reach out and we’ll demand a proof of life.
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They break their knees 
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Disagree, I think the filmmaker is right. Just look at the Bee’s Knees (or rather, the pollen it is carrying on its legs).
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A few years back we always had a bumble bee nest of some kind (I don’t know how they live) at the front of our house and it was always cool to see those big fuzzy bastards bounce around the flowers. Then some asshole wasps set up shop in a nearby bush and proceeded to systematically massacre the bumble bees - it was horrific to see it happening. I got rid of the wasps lickety split but the bumble bees didn’t come back - they hang out in the backyard now.
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Alternate caption: My five year old son leaping on me while I’m doing something else
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Righto, thanks.
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