Without a doubt, you’ve seen a bee nest. Have you ever seen a honeybee nest, though? Apart from being quite terrifying, they also exhibit something known as “emergent behavior”. This phenomenon is characterized by a grouping of items showing properties not held individually by any single item on its own. Think along the lines of “the sum is greater than its parts”.
In this case, no single bee can create a “wave”, but a group of them can. And that’s exactly what they do across their nests; they create a “wave” of movement across the whole nest as a defense mechanism utilized against wasps. Known as “shimmering”, bees will thrust their abdomens in an upward direction and shake until their neighbors do the same. This has a ripple effect and creates the spell-binding sight seen below:
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