Did a bee save another bee trapped in a spider web? Watch this video and decide!
YouTube screen capture
LONDON, England -- Would a bumblebee save the life of another?
That’s the question being debated by biologist and bee experts after a video was posted on YouTube seemingly showing just that.
In the video, posted June 9th, the narrator says he was shooting video with his smart phone of a bee caught in a spider’s web in his flat in east London. His goal initially he says was the show it to his young son later as a lesson about life and death.
But as the first bee struggles a second bee can be seen crashing into the web and then the video is slowed down it looks as if the second bee stings the spider and both bees are saved.
The question that has propelled this video to the front page of reddit and posed by the original poster:
“Did the second bee save the first on purpose? Or was it just coincidence that 2 bees landed in the same web in a matter of minutes?”
One self-identified bee expert left a comment on the original Reddit post saying that if the two were from the same colony it is possible they could communicate with each other and one might have saved the other.
Another commenter points out that bees are social creatures and have a definitive hierarchy.
“Bumblebro knew what he was doing.”