NARRATOR:
Deep in the forests of Japan,
an age-old battle
is playing out.
The tiger head,
Japan's giant killer hornet --
it's the largest
venomous wasp on the planet.
Every summer, the
giants go head to head
in a race to grow their empire.
It's a grueling
struggle for resources,
and only a few
individuals will survive.
To succeed,
they will need to
take on the competition.
Their rivals, the Yellow
Jackets, are half the size,
but they have
numbers on their side.
The third faction
is the wild card:
the humble honeybee, favorite
prey of the killer hornets.
They may be small,
but they are fierce.
Each species is
armed with potent venom,
and each will fight to
the death for their empire.
[wasps buzzing]
To us, it's a
story of clans at war.
But to these winged warriors
it's a race for survival.
¶ ¶
Our story unfolds
in four territories
of the Ancient Kingdom.
Deep in the heart
of the rock territory,
the Samurai Giants are
building their stronghold;
but every season a new
rival rises against them.
South of the mountain
stream, another sect of giants
is already budding
in the bamboo forest.
Their hive is expanding,
and they will need to
compete for resources
with their neighbors.
The Japanese Honeybees --
they work all
summer to produce honey,
and they won't surrender their
stockpile without a fight.
High up in the north,
the Yellow Jackets have
inhabited the mountains.
Detached from the
southern territories,
their temple kingdom is
the crown of the empire.
The mountain
forests are a sanctuary.
Here, the Yellow Jackets have
resided for thousands of years,
drawing from the life-giving
waters of the crystal stream.
These feisty yellow hornets
are smaller than their
giant cousins in the south,
but they are
fiercely territorial,
and they will fight to the
death to protect their hive.
They're always on high alert.
Below them, the territories
are swarming with predators,
but they've built their
hive high in the mountains,
remote and safe.
For now.
Within the hallowed grounds
of a temple,
the Yellow Jackets
thrive in peace and prosperity.
They are
hardworking and curious.
And they have a vital mission.
Every summer they
start from scratch,
build a new
empire, and reproduce.
Before winter sets in, they will
raise their young and die off,
leaving only their new
princesses to survive.
This is the start of their life
cycle; the season of rebirth;
a time of abundance.
But the exotic summer flowers
have lured a dangerous predator
into their midst.
A giant killer hornet; the
most feared wasp on the planet.
Her stinger is
laced with deadly venom,
and she's the only
hornet who hunts in swarms.
Giant hornet scouts search out
rival nests to steal larvae,
which they feed
to their own hives.
She's a voracious predator
and a cold-blooded cannibal.
Prowling the airways
in search of protein,
her wings flutter up
to 1,000 times a minute
and can lift prey one
third of her body weight.
When she finds a food source,
she deposits a
chemical called a pheromone
to scent-mark the location and
alert fellow scouts to the area.
Her large, alien eyes
wrap around her head,
giving her nearly
360-degree vision.
She can scope out
danger from any direction.
But today, she's
looking for prey.
And she's found the
Yellow Jackets' nest,
packed full of this season's
eggs and infant larvae.
Their hive has been marked,
and a giant killer advances
on their tranquil shrine.
The Yellow Jackets'
days of peace are numbered.
The giant killer hornet
is a long way from home.
Below the mountains and
across the crystal stream,
she flew from the southern
territories in search of bounty.
Her own empire is
buried deep in the heart
of the bamboo forest.
Here, the giant hornet
queen has taken her throne.
The entrance to her
hive is unassuming,
but beneath the leaf litter
she's spawning an
alien-like empire.
A single queen can lay up
to 2,000 eggs in a season,
and this hive is
already thriving.
Her first-born are the workers.
They've taken over
the duties of feeding
so that their queen can
concentrate on laying more eggs.
Her second batch of
eggs are a week old
and have developed
into ravenous grubs.
The grubs may look
helpless, but there's a twist.
The adults have tiny waists,
making it impossible
to digest solid food.
So they feed their
chewed up prey to the grubs.
Like an external stomach,
the grubs digest the protein
and generate a
tiny droplet of fluid.
It's Vespa amino acid mixture,
an energy-rich cocktail,
which is the main source
of nutrition for the adults.
Without this contact,
the workers would die.
The grubs use this food exchange
to control the adults' behavior
and manage the
entire social colony.
Their tiny, scraping mandibles
will one day
behead their enemies.
But for now they're a
relentless call to action:
"This grub needs food."
They are the
engine that runs the hive
and fuels the
insatiable need for protein.
The eldest grubs are preparing
for their final metamorphosis.
They produce a fine, silk thread
from a salivary gland
no larger than a pinprick.
Their mouth parts weave the
sticky thread into a silken cap,
encasing them into
a protective cocoon.
The silk will dry and harden,
sealing the grubs in place.
This will be their
final rite of passage
before emerging as
fully fledged killer hornets.
Two weeks from now, a
whole new legion of giants
will enter the bamboo territory.
To the west of the Bamboo
Hive lies the Rock Kingdom.
The dense woodland is
prime hunting territory
for a rival
family of giant hornets.
The Rock Samurais are a
step behind the Bamboo Hive,
but beneath their stone facade
there is great activity at work.
A sentry stands
guard, like a bulldog,
with mandibles at the ready.
Inside the dark chamber,
the first generation of workers
are rallying to
house their own new queen.
They need to catch
up with the Bamboo Hive
to be able to
compete for resources.
The workers collect tree
bark and wood from the forest,
which they chew into a paste
and carry back to
their underground empire.
Building is hard work,
and they exchange
amino acids for energy.
Using their
versatile mandibles and legs,
the worker molds the paste with
the precision of a sculptor.
The bigger the hive, the
more eggs their queen will lay,
and the greater
their empire will grow.
It's all for one
and one for all.
Rolling their
sticky papier-mache balls
between dextrous limbs,
the workers add inch by inch
to their underground mansion.
Their handiwork
dries paper thin,
but strong enough
to house an army.
A worker puts the finishing
flourish on the entrance.
It's a job well done,
and the perfect summer
palace for a Samurai queen.
Their hive secured,
the Samurai scouts set
off on a hunting foray.
This squadron of predators
can fly up to 60 miles in a day
at speeds of 30 miles per hour.
They've got a
hungry hive to feed,
and they're on a
mission to kill.
NARRATOR: High up in the Temple
Kingdom, a shadow of unrest
stirs the Yellow Jackets' nest.
The giant hornets from the rock
have followed a
scent on the breeze,
the sweet scent
of a rival's hive
packed full of
energy-rich protein.
It's a cloak and
dagger operation.
The Samurai creeps
in from the blind side.
The Yellow Jackets have
little time to respond.
They must dispatch
the enemy quickly.
If the Samurai escapes, she will
return with her entire army.
The Yellow Jackets are punching
way above their weight,
but they have
numbers on their side.
¶ ¶
[Wasps Buzzing]
They may have
the home advantage,
but it takes ten Yellow Jackets
to bring down one Samurai.
¶ ¶
[Wasps Buzzing]
The Samurai falls, but
the battle is far from won.
The Yellows take the
fight to the ground.
Here, they deliver
their death sentence.
Their stingers release a lethal
dose of neurotoxic venom.
The Samurais lie
broken and defeated
at the foot of
their rival's shrine.
What should have
been easy pickings
has turned into
desperate defeat.
Today, they underestimated
the mighty Yellow Jackets
of the north.
It's a huge setback
for the Samurai hive.
The Yellow Jackets have
saved their precious young.
They beat down a giant opponent,
but their peaceful
existence has been shattered.
Beyond the scenes of
carnage, the Bamboo Giants
are gathering strength and
capitalizing on the summer.
The sap is rising
and the scouts are
harvesting the liquid gold.
Once again, their
saw-like mandibles
are the tools of choice.
Gnawing through the bark,
they expose tiny dams
of energy-rich tree sap.
A Hercules beetle is also
drawn to the sweet scent.
He's three times her size,
but even clad in heavy
armor, he isn't hornet-proof.
The Bamboo scout
targets his legs,
the fast track to
demobilizing an opponent.
Teamwork is everything.
The sap boosts their energy,
but it's a mere pit stop.
The scouts need
to feed their grubs,
and their grubs need protein.
Japanese Honeybees --
these furry
little forest dwellers
are also working around the
clock to nurture their hive.
Beneath the cool, mossy
exterior of their fortress,
their own empire is expanding.
During the summer months,
worker bees tirelessly
produce honey for the hive.
They spend their
days collecting nectar,
visiting up to 100
flowers per foraging trip.
They regurgitate the honey
into cells in the honeycomb.
Here, it is stored
as their food source
over the long months of
winter, when nectar is scarce.
The dedicated workers
only live for six weeks.
As they die, new
workers hatch to replace them.
These sticky infants
are the next generation of
honey producers in the hive.
Their teamwork has
produced a thriving colony,
and it's a treasure chest
just waiting to be plundered.
For a foraging Bamboo Giant,
a beehive is the land
of protein and honey.
If they can get to the larvae,
it will fuel their entire army.
Bees are their favorite prey.
NARRATOR: The Bamboo Giants
weigh 20 times more
than their honeybee prey,
and this handful of hornets
can wipe out tens of thousands
of bees in a matter of hours.
They've hit the jackpot.
¶ ¶
[Insects Buzzing]
There's an enemy in their midst,
but these bees have
hatched a battle plan.
This isn't their first rodeo.
Working in groups, the
bees overwhelm the hornet,
biting and
stinging her repeatedly.
¶ ¶
[Insects Buzzing]
They disperse a pheromone which
alerts the rest of the hive
and calls in fresh recruits.
Clusters of bees mob the hornet
and block the
breathing holes on her abdomen.
Their aim is to
heat up her temperature
beyond her thermal limit.
Inside the
bee ball it's 116 degrees,
and the smothered
hornet is quickly overheating.
Bees on the
outskirts form body chains,
holding the bee ball in
place, like guide ropes.
There's no room for
the weakest link here.
The giant gives
up her brave fight,
defeated by a tiny
bee one-fifth her size,
but insurmountable
as a united force.
The Bamboo scouts won't
feed their grubs tonight.
¶ ¶
The season is cooling down
and there is change in the air.
The emerald summer forests are
flaunting their autumn foliage.
The new season brings new life,
and soon there will
be more mouths to feed.
The dark belly of
the bamboo forest
is rumbling with activity.
Two weeks have passed,
and the grubs have transformed
their chubby, soft skins
into a svelte and
solid body armor.
Claw by claw, the
tender, helpless grubs emerge,
now tough and hard
and fully equipped
to be a new
generation of Bamboo Giants.
The same tiny
mandibles that called for food
are now jagged shears that
slice through a thick cocoon.
An army awakes.
The new hornet stretches
her limbs for the first time
and familiarizes herself
with her perfectly
designed body armor.
She uses the
bristly hairs on her legs
to remove debris
from her cocoon.
Soon, the same
hairs will gather pollen
to feed her infant sisters.
She disperses her
first pheromones,
pledging her
allegiance to the hive.
The golden hairs on her head
are sensitive to
both light and gravity.
They connect to her brain
to form the base
of her gravity organ,
an internal GPS
which she will use
to navigate her way
around the kingdom.
Despite their loss to the bees,
the Bamboo Giants
just grew their empire.
This super-hive is
now almost 2,000 strong,
the strongest
hive in the kingdom.
NARRATOR:
In the Yellow Jacket Kingdom,
an uneasy peace is restored.
Their empire is thriving.
Inside, their hive is also
humming with new life.
But they've been marked.
This time, the Rock
Samurais have brought numbers.
The silent killers claw
their way up the fortress
towards their goal.
Deliberate and deadly, they
summit the Yellow Jacket hive.
A Yellow squadron
takes to the air,
leaving their
sentries to defend the hive.
They rally, but the
giants are simply too strong.
As the Yellow Jackets fall,
the pendulum swings in
favor of the Samurais.
The battleground is littered
with casualties from both sides,
but the Samurais prevail.
They breach the entrance,
and inside, they
find their holy grail,
a bottomless cup
of fat and protein.
They tear the Yellow Jacket
larvae from their silken tombs
and chew the chubby
flesh into tiny meatballs.
It's not greed or
hunger that drives them.
They will carry the chewed up
protein back to their own grubs,
who will refuel their army.
They harvest as
much as they can.
Teamwork, for the
greater good of the hive.
With clean-cut precision,
the Samurais separate
the meat from the guts.
It's wasted energy to fly
back with useless body parts.
Seasoned looters, they
take only what's most valuable.
In one final act of savagery,
a Samurai scout beheads
the last Yellow sentry.
The Yellow Jacket
empire has fallen.
In the hornet
kingdom, war is not a lust,
but a deep-rooted
blueprint in their DNA --
the instinct to lay down
their lives, fight, and kill
for the survival
of their species.
The north lies conquered,
and the Rock Samurais
have gained new ground.
Like cargo planes filled with
plunder, the scouts fly south,
laden down with
the spoils of war.
They are edging ahead in
their race for survival.
Among the Rock Samurais,
there is a sense of
anticipation in the air.
The sentry is on high alert.
She sits in wait to
check in her scouts.
One by one, they return, bearing
the fruits of their mission,
checking through
security on their way in.
The raid on the Yellow
Jackets was a huge victory.
The juicy grubs are
welcome food parcels
which the scouts
share out among the hive.
It's a fruitful homecoming.
The Samurai queen is
fulfilling her destiny,
and her empire has
reached an important milestone.
The first generation of
princesses is emerging.
These red-faced hatchlings are
born at the end of the season
and will take the
mantle from their queen.
The princess takes her first
sip of amino acids from a grub.
She'll need the
energy for the task ahead.
Her royal pheromones have
already attracted a suitor.
The male drone mounts her,
subduing her with his mandibles.
¶ ¶
Only the princesses get to mate,
to become next year's queens.
The drone transfers sperm into
her ovipositor through a duct,
but doesn't fertilize her eggs.
She will store the
sperm until next summer
and fertilize her own eggs
when she's ready to
start a new empire.
¶ ¶
It seems a
gentle and caring act,
but the male is
racing a deadline --
a deadline every
hornet drone faces.
Outside the
hive, the air is abuzz
as another
princess makes her debut.
She's immediately
seized by a fervent male.
[Wasps Buzzing]
More drones are drawn
in by her pheromones,
mobbing the
princess in her tracks.
The vicious struggle
belies a grisly truth:
The princess is
extracting their sperm
through her lethal stinger,
which doubles as her sex organ.
The stingless drones
have one sole purpose:
They mate
and then die.
¶ ¶
The princess flies off,
carrying next
season's empire inside her.
The male's job is
done, his seed secured.
The season is gathering steam,
and the circle
of life is closing.
For the Bamboo Giants
it's the last desperate push.
They've grown a super-hive,
and they need a
big heist to feed it.
At dawn, they raid.
NARRATOR:
Winter is coming,
and the hives are at their
peak, but resources are low.
The Rock Samurais
plundered the Yellow Jackets
and ravaged their territory.
The Bamboo Giants
lost to the bees,
and they've expanded
beyond the meager food supplies
of their bamboo forest.
They're en route
to the last stockpile
of food in the kingdom,
the Rock Samurai stronghold.
The Samurai scouts bring news
that there's an army on its way.
They rally the
troops, but it's too late.
The Bamboo battalion is on them.
The Rock Samurais are
ambushed at their own entrance.
When times are tough,
giant killer hornets
turn on their own kind.
It's like on
like, giant on giant,
claws, stingers and mandibles;
all weapons deployed.
And heads will roll.
Disabling the enemy
is the primary strategy.
¶ ¶
[Insects Buzzing]
Beheading and severing limbs.
The mandibles are the
ultimate weapon of war.
¶ ¶
[Insects Buzzing]
It's impossible to
determine who's winning
until the pillaging starts.
The marauding Bamboo
Giants enter the fortress.
They've conquered
the Rock Samurais,
and they've struck gold.
[Insects Eating]
The precious nursery
of developing princesses
is ransacked,
next year's queens killed and
cannibalized in their chambers.
The sentry can do nothing
but witness the devastation
of her precious family.
Outside, the carnage continues.
It's a protein feast. The Bamboo
Giants have hit pay dirt.
¶ ¶
[Insects Buzzing]
One last act of brutality
seals the fate of
the vanquished army.
The Rock Samurai queen
is dragged from her throne
and evicted from her fortress.
¶ ¶
One murderous stinger
finds a chink in her armor,
paralyzing her giant body.
As the deadly venom engulfs
her, she succumbs to her fate.
Her troops rally to her
aid, but it's too late.
The body count is a crushing
blow to the Rock Samurai empire.
¶ ¶
[Insects Buzzing]
The Bamboo Giants
pick through the dead,
bathed in victory and gathering
bounty for their hive.
Their own life cycle is
nearing its natural end,
but this carnage will
fuel their next generation.
A tiny honeybee triumphs over
the corpse of her mortal enemy.
An extended stinger,
still dripping with venom,
speaks of a brave death.
Among the ravaged cadavers,
a dauntless
survivor clings to life --
a new Samurai princess, rising
from the corpses of her hive.
Remarkably, she's
survived this baptism of fire.
She's a giant killer
hornet, queen of wasps,
with outlandish eyesight, lethal
venom and legendary jaws.
She's built to endure,
and she will keep the
Samurai flame burning.
Inside her is the
future of her species.
She just needs to
spread her wings.
She takes flight, a
princess filled with purpose,
on her maiden voyage.
This brave Samurai
will be next summer's queen
and the cornerstone of a whole
new killer hornet kingdom.
Giant killer hornets play a
vital role in their ecosystem
as both predator and prey.
To us, it's a
story of clans at war,
but to these winged warriors,
it's a cold,
clinical circle of life.
¶ ¶
