Ferocious Hornet Moments | Top 5 | BBC Earth

[Music] [Applause] back in the hive those bees too young to forage are housekeeping like the hornet queen the queen bee has the immeasurable task of laying enough eggs to ensure the health and future of the colony the custom of keeping wild japanese bees is as old as society itself and yamaguchi has kept bees since boyhood japanese bees are so sensitive that it takes great patience and skill to keep them the art of keeping them lies in understanding their behavior they make honey stalls for the winter but they also produce enough for yamaguchi to harvest japanese bees may produce less honey than european bees but the taste is very special it's the smell of this growing store of energy-rich honey which could be their downfall if it draws in a hornet scout but right now the hornets have other problems to contend with the nest is now monstrous the workers have excavated over a ton of earth there are so many bodies living at close quarters that the queen and her dynasty are in danger of overheating so workers create air conditioning keeping a steady flow of fresh air circulating being unable to cope with high temperatures is a giant hornet's achilles heel the warmth of the hornet's nest belies the change in season seasons change fast up here in the mountains and when autumn arrives there are far fewer insects around this means my hives are even more vulnerable to attack for me it's an anxious time in the search for autumnal food a scout hornet discovers yamaguchi's wild bees the honeybees fan an alarm pheromone through the air this alerts the whole hive to the hornet's presence the scout smells the honey within a prize this rich is worth scent marking but unlike the european bees these japanese bees do not attack instead they lure the scout inside still the bees hang fire then one is caught it's the signal the others have been waiting for [Music] so surrounded by vibrating bodies the hornet at the core of the b-ball begins to overheat the bees have the advantage a heat tolerance two degrees above that of their enemy at 46 degrees celsius the aggressor is roasted alive the wild bees have spent millions of years living with the enemy that's why they alone have developed this extraordinary survival strategy yellow hornets are a little smaller than the giants but there are fifteen hundred of them in this nest they outnumber the giants five to one yet the queen's workers are driven to fight they have no option but to take on their bitter rivals [Music] [Music] [Music] the giants are outnumbered and each attacks alone it's not a good strategy [Music] [Music] the yellows dispatch giant after giant with a lethal sting to the back of the neck it's the only in a giant hornet's armor [Music] today's battle is lost but this is a war of attrition the following morning the giants begin a new wave of attacks [Music] and this time they gain control of the nest envelope [Music] a breach is made in the yellow hornet's defenses the yellows begin to tear down their own walls in hopeless panic finally their only option is desertion victory comes at a terrible cost but the rewards to the queen are enormous [Music] the giant hornet warriors work through the abandoned nest ripping out food the bounty they bring back will be enough to fuel the young males and queens through metamorphosis the queen is so close to achieving success within days of the battle her young fertile offspring have begun to spin their caps but at this triumphant moment something is wrong her own fertility has failed and she no longer produces the pheromones which have kept her aggressive warriors subjugated her workers sense her impotence her faithful warriors her very own daughters rise up against her [Music] [Music] she is killed [Music] in this power vacuum the nest descends into anarchy the workers turn on their own larvae and fight amongst themselves the nest floor is covered with the death and decay of a fallen empire but the dead queen's life has not been in vain from the ruins of the empire new lives [Music] emerge first males and their new queens burst forth from their cells [Music] and a different kind of battle begins males fight for the right to mate the queens will only mate once before escaping and everyone that does carries the old queen's bloodline like her they will have many challenges to overcome but their mother was strong so they will have a fighting chance the bees rush out in defense but this is their undoing [Music] one by one they're picked off [Music] more hornets join the attack [Music] the hornets emit a chemical rallying cry and this triggers a unique phenomenon they no longer carry b carcasses back to the nest instead they slaughter then cast aside the body of every defender they meet [Music] it's the start of a mass attack [Music] each warrior can kill up to 40 bees a million the european bees outnumber the hornets a thousand to one but they didn't evolve alongside these huge asian predators and have no effective defence within the hour ten thousand bees are dying their stings are not strong enough but as the corpses pile up the hornets begin to tire giant hornets are so big they are in danger of overheating but the send to the prize inside drives them to fight until they drop 30 000 honeybees have died in three hours falling victim to just 30 giant hornets by midday the defenses are breached now the real plunder begins the hornets pay little attention to the few surviving bees the motivation for the attack lies within the combs outside the exhausted hornets exchange liquids to boost their energy inside the defenseless young are butchered the succulent and nutritious flesh will be a massive boost to the hornet's own larvae and their queen's fortunes for the first month of spring the queen has her work cut out as she builds her starter nest she flies at up to 50 kilometers per hour if you could keep up with her she would appear formidable a giant amongst wasps her body is packed with deadly venom giant hornets claim the lives of up to 70 japanese each year her huge sophisticated eyes allow precision navigation her fearsome jaw packed with muscle is a weapon her daughters will inherit and wield in bloody combat her wings bear the weight of her massive body she must fly for kilometers every day as she prepares for the birth of her army multiple layers of chitin form an impenetrable body armor over her precious cargo of eggs the time has come to found her empire the queen has chosen to set up home in the riverbank underground the delicate starter nest is protected from the wind and sun [Music] she lays her very first egg just like any mother her commitment to her offspring will be unswerving her young should have a good start unless luck turns against her [Music] runoff from the storm forces the river to flood [Music] she must escape but she can't take her larvae with her [Music] it's a terrible setback but it's not the last the valley will see of this queen [Music] [Applause] foreign

Channel: BBC Earth

Views: 1,115,104

Keywords: bbc documentary, bbc, bbcearth, bbc earth, hornets, bees, hornets vs bees, yellow hornets, european hornets, queen hornet

Id: VUcxNzi0YcY

Length: 20min 19sec (1219 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 06 2021

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