Figure 3. The time courses of shimmering of Giant honeybees in response to approaching hornets (scenario B).

The waving strength W ( = number of abdomen-shaking bees per frame) depends on the hornets' distances from the nest d_xz (A) and on the hornets' flight velocities v_xz (B); time zero defines the onset of the waves; (A) five d_xz classes (Cd_xz = 1–5; coded in yellow to red; for definition, see Methods and Fig. 4,5) and (B) eight v_xz classes (Cv_xz = 1–8; coded in green to blue) of hornet flight episodes were considered; d_xz and v_xz class values were assessed from hornets in the 400 ms interval prior to the start of shimmering. Curves show arithmetical means, thin vertical lines denote SEM. For data details, see table 1 and 2.