Home▸Entomology & Insect Behaviour▸The Enemies of the Hive: Bee Colony Threats Lab

🛡️ The Enemies of the Hive: Bee Colony Threats Lab

A 3D cutaway beehive where you dial up varroa mite load, Asian hornet pressure and wax moth infestation, and watch colony health, hornet-balling defence and comb damage respond in real time.

Entomology & Insect Behaviour3DAdvanced60 FPS

A cutaway beehive lets you dial up Varroa mite load, Asian hornet pressure and wax moth infestation independently, then watch colony health, thermal hornet-balling defence and comb damage respond in real time.

🔬 What It Demonstrates

Each threat degrades the colony through a different mechanism — direct parasitism and virus transmission from mites, predation pressure and stress from hornets, and structural comb destruction from wax moth larvae — while beekeeper IPM intervention blunts all three at once.

🎮 How to Use

Move the three threat sliders and watch mites appear on brood cells, hornets circle the entrance, and webbing spread across the comb. Push hornet pressure high enough to trigger guard bees balling and overheating an attacker, then flip on IPM treatment to see damage fall.

💡 Did You Know?

Varroa destructor jumped from the Asian honey bee to the western honey bee in the 20th century and is now considered the single biggest driver of colony losses worldwide, largely through the viruses it vectors.

⚙ Under the hood

A 3D cutaway beehive where you dial up varroa mite load, Asian hornet pressure and wax moth infestation, and watch colony health, hornet-balling defence and comb damage respond in real time.

beescolonysimulationpestshiveinsectThree.js

3D · Three.js / WebGL renderer · 60 FPS target · runs fully client-side, no install