Acteal Massacre

Massacre of 45 people attending a prayer meeting of Roman Catholic indigenous townspeople, including a number of children and pregnant women, who were members of the pacifist group Las Abejas ("The Bees"), in the small village of Acteal in the municipality of Chenalhó, in the Mexican state of Chiapas. It was carried out on December 22, 1997 by unknown paramilitary forces.

The Las Abejas activists professed support for the goals of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, including their rejection of applying violent means. Many suspect this affiliation as the reason for the attack, and government involvement or complicity. Soldiers at a nearby military outpost didn't intervene during the attack, which lasted for hours, and the following morning, soldiers were found washing the church walls to hide the blood stains.


Names of Those Killed at Acteal Massacre

Lucia Mendez Capote 13
Vicente Mendez Capote 5
Manuel Santiz Culebra 57
Loida Ruiz Gomez 21
Victorio Vazquez Gomez 22
Graciela Gomez Hernandez 3
Guadalupe Gomez Hernandez 2
Roselia Gomez Hernandez 5
Miguel Perez Jimenez 40
Antonia Vazquez Luna 27
Rosa Vazquez Luna 14
Veronica Vazquez Luna 20
Margarita Vazquez Luna 3
Juana Vazquez Luna 8 months
Ignacio Pukuj Luna unknown
Micaela Pukuj Luna 67
Alejandro Perez Luna 16
Juana Perez Luna 9
Silvia Perez Luna 6
Maria Luna Mendez 44
Nanuela Paciencia Moreno 35
Maria Perez Oyalte 42
Margarita Mendez Paciencia 23
Daniel Gomez Perez 24
Susana Jimenez Perez 17
Josefa Vazquez Perez 27
Maria Capote Perez 16
Martha Capote Perez 12
Micaela Vazquez Perez 9
Juana Gomez Perez 61
Juan Carlos Luna Perez 1
Antonia Vazquez Perez 30
Lorenzo Gomez Perez 46
Sebastian Gomez Perez 9
Daniel Gomez Perez 24
Juana Perez Perez 33
Rosa Perez Perez 33
Marcela Luna Ruiz 35
Maria Gomez Ruiz 23
Catarina Luna Ruiz 31
Marcela Capote Ruiz 29
Marcela Capote Vazquez 15
Paulina Hernandez Vazquez 22
Juana Luna Vazquez 45
Alonso Vasquez Gomez 46

Honeybee mobs overpower hornets

By Victoria Gill Science reporter, BBC News

15:48 GMT, Friday, 3 July 2009 16:48 UK

Honeybee hordes use two weapons - heat and carbon dioxide - to kill their natural enemies, giant hornets. Japanese honeybees form "bee balls" - mobbing and smothering the predators. This has previously been referred to as "heat-balling", but a study has now shown that carbon dioxide also plays a role in its lethal effectiveness. In the journal Naturwissenschaften, the scientists describe how hornets are killed within 10 minutes when they are trapped inside a ball of bees. Japanese giant hornets, which can be up to 5cm long, are voracious predators that can devastate bees' nests and consume their larvae. But, if the bees spot their attacker in time, they mount a powerful defence in the form of a bee ball. This study found that the heat inside the bee ball alone was not enough to reliably kill the hornets.

"They can survive for 10 minutes at a temperature up to 47C, and the temperature inside the bee balls does not rise higher than 46C," said Fumio Sakamoto, a researcher from Kyoto Gakuen University in Japan, and one of the authors of the study. His team recreated experimental bee balls and took direct measurements from inside them. They anaesthetised giant hornets and fixed them to the tip either of a thermometer probe, or the inlet of a gas detector. Once the hornets recovered from their anaesthesia, the probes were touched to the bees' nest. "The bee ball formed (around the hornet) immediately," said Dr Sakamoto. After 10 minutes the bees were packed solidly enough around the probe to be removed from the nest in a distinct ball. As the temperature inside the ball increased to more than 45C, the carbon dioxide level also rose sharply.

In a parallel experiment, the scientists found that in an atmosphere relatively high in carbon dioxide, the temperature at which hornets could survive for 10 minutes was lowered. "So we concluded that carbon dioxide produced inside the bee ball by the honeybees is a major factor, together with temperature, involved in the bees' defence." Dr Sakamoto is not sure, at this point, whether the bees were effectively "gassing" the hornets, or simply depriving them of oxygen. "Either way, the carbon dioxide increase and/or the oxygen decrease lowered the temperature that was lethal to the hornets, " he told BBC News. "We are going to do the additional experiments about this point using mixed air of various oxygen and carbon dioxide (concentrations)."

The mob of bees also appeared to operate in "two phases". "The hornet may be killed during the first 0-5 minute period, in which the highest level of heat production and carbon dioxide emissions take place," said Dr Sakamoto. This might suggest that the bees are aware of what physiological state the hornet is in. Dr Sakamoto said: "The latter 5-10 min period may be free running to ensure their victim's death."