By Susan Milius
Like fans in a stadium, giant honeybees at their nest make big, rippling audience waves, new video shows.
![](https://i0.wp.com/www.sciencenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/8687.jpg?resize=300%2C217&ssl=1)
![](https://i0.wp.com/www.sciencenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/8688.jpg?resize=300%2C221&ssl=1)
![](https://i0.wp.com/www.sciencenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/8689.jpg?resize=300%2C208&ssl=1)
And the bee waves are spooky enough to drive away predatory hornets, an international research team reports online September 10 in PLoS ONE.
Giant honeybees (Apis dorsata), unlike western honeybees, form open nests without outer coverings. Thousands of the giant bees cling to each other, sometimes seven layers deep, in a mass around the home comb, says Gerald Kastberger of the University of Graz in Austria.