Oriental hornets (Vespa orientalis) survived and maintained several measured behaviors while consuming ethanol in a laboratory study—but that does not show that every hornet is immune to alcohol or incapable of intoxication. In a 2024 study, researchers found that chronic feeding with ethanol solutions up to 80% did not significantly affect the hornets’ survival, nest construction, or measured responses to intruders. Those results apply to the species and outcomes tested, not to every possible effect of alcohol.
What does “alcohol-tolerant” mean here?
In everyday language, asking whether hornets “get drunk” can mean asking whether alcohol changes their behavior or harms them. The study did not establish a general answer to every version of that question. It tested Oriental hornets under controlled conditions and measured survival, nest-construction behavior, agonistic behavior toward intruders, and ethanol metabolism.
For those specific measures, the researchers reported no significant effect from chronic ethanol consumption, including at the highest concentration tested. That is evidence of striking tolerance in the experimental setting—not proof that hornets cannot become intoxicated, or that alcohol has no effect on any of their physiological functions.
How the researchers tested Oriental hornets
Seven-day feeding experiments
Bouchebti and colleagues gave hornets sucrose solutions containing ethanol concentrations from 0% to 80% for seven days. The paper’s figure information describes survival experiments with 50 hornets per concentration group. The researchers reported no significant effect on mortality, nest construction, or measured agonistic responses to intruders. The 80% figure refers to the laboratory feeding solution; it is not a claim about alcohol concentrations hornets encounter in nature.
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A comparison with honey bees
In a separate controlled experiment, researchers fed harnessed Oriental hornets and honey bees ethanol-containing solutions. Under that specific condition, the honey bee workers did not survive beyond 24 hours, while the hornets did. This was a laboratory comparison using the tested animals and procedure; it does not establish that all honey bees or hornets respond the same way in natural settings.
How hornets may process ethanol
To track what happened to alcohol after feeding, the researchers used carbon-13-labeled ethanol. They detected ethanol-derived carbon in hornet tissues and found that Oriental hornets metabolized ethanol faster than honey bees in the experiment.
The team also examined alcohol dehydrogenase (NADP+) genes. Their genomic analysis found multiple copies in the vespid genera examined, including two to four copies in the examined Vespa species. The authors proposed that gene duplication could help explain the hornets’ ethanol tolerance. The study did not prove that duplication is the sole cause, so it is best understood as a possible mechanism rather than a settled explanation.
Does 80% alcohol reflect what hornets encounter outdoors?
No. The 80% concentration was used in a controlled feeding solution. The paper notes that ethanol can occur naturally in fruits and nectar, but says natural fermentation is limited to about 20% because fermenting yeast does not survive at higher concentrations. The experimental result therefore shows how the tested hornets responded to a high-concentration solution in the lab, not that they routinely drink anything close to it in the wild.
What the findings do—and do not—show
- They show: In this study, chronic ethanol feeding up to 80% did not significantly affect Oriental hornet mortality, nest construction, or measured agonistic behavior.
- They show: Hornets metabolized ethanol faster than honey bees under the study’s experimental conditions.
- They do not show: That every species called a hornet has the same tolerance, or that every individual will respond identically.
- They do not show: That ethanol has no effects on all hornet physiology, or that hornets are categorically incapable of intoxication.
- They do not show: A proven human medical treatment or clinical application. The authors discuss alcohol-metabolism research as a possible area of future interest, not an established therapy.
The study behind the finding
The primary source is Sofia Bouchebti, Yael Gershon, Alexander Gordin, Dorothée Huchon, and Eran Levin, “Tolerance and efficient metabolization of extremely high ethanol concentrations by a social wasp,” published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on October 29, 2024. Read the study in PNAS.
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