Overlapping flight performances and predation success
behaviour
When looking at predation success, this was four times higher when
hornets attempted to predate honey bees entering the hive (69.46%
success in predation events of honey bees entering the hive) compared
with honey bees leaving the hive (15.27% success in predation events of
honey bees leaving the hive). The only global parameter that had a
significant impact on hornet predation success was the number of hornets
in front of the hive, when considered as a quadratic parameter(Table 1, Table S1) . Predation success had a positive quadratic
relationship with the square number of hornet present (Table 1 )
and this peaked at approximately 8 hornets (Figure 4 ). The
number of honey bee flight trajectories, the time of day and the
interactions between those parameters did not have any significant
impact on hornet predation success (Table 1) .
We found no significant difference in hornet flight speed associated
with hornet predation success or failure (Kruskal-Wallis
chi-squared=0.44, df=2, P=0.80). In other words, the flight speed of
hornet that then successfully caught a honeybee did not differ from the
flight speed of those hornets that were unsuccessful. Similarly, we
found no difference in percentage of time hornets spent hovering
(Kruskal-Wallis chi-squared=0.32, df=2, P=0.85) nor with hornet flight
curvature (Kruskal-Wallis chi-squared=1.71, df =2, P=0.43) associated
with predation success or failure. Moreover, there were no significant
difference in honeybee flight speed associated with hornet predation
success or failure (Kruskal-Wallis chi-squared=2.26, df=2, P=0.32), and
no significant difference in honey bee time spent hovering
(Kruskal-Wallis chi-squared=0.93, df=2, P=0.63). But honey bee flight
curvature was significantly lower in case of hornet predation success
compared to unsuccessful predation attempts (Kruskal-Wallis
chi-squared=11.10, df=2, P=0.005), meaning that the capacity of honey
bees to have more curved trajectories, or less straight flight paths,
allowed them to be more successful in avoiding hornet predation.