I love how they keep edging this wasp for 10 minutes. The very second he actually gets a latch, every bee in the radius is like “HE ASSAULTED THAT GUY! GET HIS ASS!”
I always hated hornets because of their violent tendencies so I'm glad that these honeybees can at least fight back. I feel sad for the ones that gave their lives to defeat that large doofus though.
hornets are not inherently bad, all animals have their places in their respective habitat. The hornet is a source of food for other animals, and regulates some animal populations, pests might overpopulate otherwise and cause problems. It's important to not enforce our morality onto animals!
@@merryxu2996the issue is that hornets are probably some of the most destructive insects around and are very aggressive even if one stays a good distance from them. They are one of the only categories of insects humans should force our morality on imo. Smaller members of Hymenoptera like bees and wasps which will not be as aggressive as hornets can probably still provide ample food sources for other animals like birds and anteaters
@@tiramisu7544they are destructive as an invasive species, honey bees in japan where they come from have lived alongside them for milions of years just fine
All I could hear when they started attacking the hornet was 'GET THAT BASTARD' and when the rest of the bees showed up they began chanting 'FOR THE QUEEN'
So what happens is, one of the honey bees volunteers to sacrifice it's own life by taking on a fight it has no chance of winning, and then the whole hive just jumps the hornet....
If they can kill the scout then they can avert catastrophe from a full on force. For them the life of one is nothing to ensuring the hive is never discovered in the first place.
Damn, those monsters take out about 30 bees before getting even half neutralised, and its just terrifying. Sad seeing this struggle but those people helping the bees are the true Warriors.
The problem is: Japanese honey bees have evolved with this defense strategy but Japan has imported honey bees from Europe (because they produce more honey). However, the European honey bees haven't evolved alongside giant hornets and don't know what to do when they get attacked. They end up facing the hornets one by one, and one by one have their heads bitten off until the whole hive is decimated.
I live in Japan and once had a hive of these guys over my barbeque grill under a covered patio. They are monsters on wings and are unforgettable. Their hive was a paper ball hive about 8" in diameter with a tapered end and a hole. It was late spring, cool, and most insects were hunkered down. I must have had one too many beers because I fired up a barbeque and didn't realize I had a large hive three feet over my head. Focused on smoking a brisket and grilling sausages, I finally noticed something, black and orange with a bulbous head and hooked pincers, with a body several inches in size, hovering nearby. The critter was checking me out and he scared the heck out of me when I realized it was a "Murder Hornet" ... a common name for this particular insect. These guys have an unbelievably painful sting, and can kill the elderly and young. I backed away and only then spotted the hive. So, I ran down to the military base PX, bought me a can of Raid wasp and hornet spray and - after carefully rolling the grill to the far side of the patio, I blasted the loathsome boogers from about 15 feet away. A few crawled out of the hive and just slowly stopped. Amazingly, they just clung to the nest then died in place. It was like they went to sleep. I emptied the entire can on that nest not knowing what was inside. Since it was a cool day, I think most of the hornets were still inside the hive and maybe the smoke from my smoldering mesquite wood chips had sedated them. I managed to get them all and after an hour or so, I knocked the hive down with a shovel and disposed of the offending fiends.
Going to a military base for supplies after such an encounter seems very appropriate. It’s unfortunate they were out of flame throwers and you had to settle for the Raid.
@@cvdinjapan7935 you have to consider the nature of the insect as a whole rather than their actions in that exact moment. Their lifestyle is theft and genocides of one of the most important and productive species on the planet: honey bees.
I'll assume like here, Canada, hornets won't fly to attack at night. It happened to me and a former girlfriend at her cottage. While chainsawing a fallen birch tree for eventual stove firewood, we both wee stull several times. I had to find the nest which I did after an hour or so. The nest was huge and just above ground level attached to a newly developing tiny pine tree branch. At dark, we started our usual pit fire which was near the nest. At total dark I put on leather working gloves and with my girlfriend behind me with the flashlight wrapped a green garbage bag around the whole hive then began the hive from tree branch separation and boy were they buzzing..pulled it off, closed the top of the bag and we returned to our drinks and the pit fire...
Thank you for making this informative video. I'm from Marysville, Washington, USA and a few years ago some of these murder hornets managed to make it over; our department of agriculture as well as gardeners have been actively on the search for these because they are a huge threat to our bees here. Some people who haven't seen the hornets in person still think the problem is exaggerated but I'll be making traps for the spring.
There's no such thing as a "murder hornet". That was a ridiculous term spread by the idiot media and clueless people ate it up. Animals can certainly kill, but the term murder only applies to humans killing other humans.
That is seriously fascinating that they generate so much heat together!! I never knew they could do such a thing… truly wonderful creatures honey bees are
To be honest the hornets have a very specific biology, their body temp is raised by even a tiny bit for too long and they die, so the bees only need to make it a degree or two hotter to kill the hornet
"Only in death, one's duty ends" They served their empire proudly, and hold the hive line without giving up an inch earning their place beside the ones that came before them.
As cruel as this sorta was, there were only so many ways to get this footage, and you can appreciate how a beekeeper would have limited sympathy for a hive killer
In some parts of Japan, they are considered a delicacy. If these hornets reached other parts of the world and started to eradicate western honey bees, it could cost millions of dollars in crop damage. Just hypothetically speaking.
3:35 "My soldiers, rage! My soldiers, scream! My soldiers, fight!" [cue epic soundtrack] In all seriousness though, the ways that both species have specifically evolved to adapt to each other (iirc the wasps evolved first into a raider-like species that uses their proportionally large size and strength to kill and steal from other insects, while the Japanese honeybee develop a literal deathball sauna to counter them) is just absolutely fascinating
Living here in Japan I once spent an entire afternoon watching wild bees coming in and out of their hive inside a tree along a river bank. As I sat there all afternoon captivated by these bees it was amazing to note for a people who claim to "love nature" not one person who walked by noticed the bees flying around. I then watched several giant hornets hovering around the entrance to the hive with the wild bees forming a large clump that started "shivering" when the hornets threatened to get closer to the entrance.
Most Japanese I know here in Japan try to avoid nature. The younger they are, the more they avoid it. A tiny gnat in the classroom can cause chaos among the students!
@@earlysda Funny. I went to a wedding once when everyone was standing outside waiting for the bride and groom to exit. A big fly or maybe a bumblebee started hovering overhead. The staff lost all control. One guy gets a step ladder and emptied almost an entire spray can of insecticide on the thing and it some how managed to survive that. I could not fathom what I was witnessing.
@@installshieldwizard3017 That’s how the original Doomsday in the Death of Superman story arc came to be: he was a Kryptonian life form that was repeatedly left to fend for itself in the harsh environment that was Krypton thousands of years ago. Each time he would die, Bertron, his creator, and other scientists would bring him back in to the lab for genetic adjustments. Doomsday would adapt, growing stronger, lasting longer each time, until he eventually got to a point where he couldn’t be killed. This is from Superman: Hunter/Prey.
Typically the hornets will wait outside the entrances and just pick them off one by one. Not sure if that would help save some of the colony that bunkers inside or not.
There’s another method they did by putting up a plastic covering with holes for their open air colony. The bees can go through the holes but the holes are too small for the hornets to get in and raid the combs.
What about a "cage/raster" surrounding the hives with holes only big enough for the bees. In this way the bees can see where the hornets are located, or the hornets will give up quicker as they can't reach the hives...
The honey bee is afraid, but has courage. Despite knowing their ultimate fate, they continue the mission. Like a true warrior, walking through the valley of the shadow of death.
Thanks for the Russian subtitles! Watching these insects is very interesting, especially with my mild insectophobia. This allows you to safely come into contact with such an interesting world of insects. Good luck, beekeeping is a very important branch of animal husbandry!
It's a little odd to me that western bees haven't really adapted to use this trick to kill invading hornets, giant asian hornets or otherwise. To my knowledge, the worker bees use this same technique to dispatch a queen if they feel she's no longer a productive queen or if you try to add an additional queen to a nest that already has a queen in it. They'll ball her up and kill her this same way, it just doesn't take nearly the same number of bees to do it.
Adapted in what like a week month year? Evolution doesn't happen overnight because someone brought Western insects to the East where there are predators that kills them
See people!! If we work like the bees in unison then nobody can push us around!!! If only humans worked together that well. I also love how down bad they all were so finish the kill and not let the bee keeper swipe them away so easily. They’re like “nah you attack MY home and MY queen?? I don’t think so honey!” 😂
One Japanese bee keeper has metal hives that has a small opening of metal that is big enough to allow the honey bee though but too small for the hornet. He captures one hornet with a butterfly net and sticks it to a rat glue trap and the pheromones attract more hornets who get stuck.
As someone watching from the US • I remain glad we do not have these Giant hornets here in the US (yet) • This is a good demonstration of how bee pheromones are used to address the threat to the colony • Thanks so very much for posting and sharing! All the best and God Bless. 🙏❤🇺🇸
@@divinitaliusgaming6167I believe there have been no confirmed Japanese giant hornet sighting in the US in like 2 years? Unsure how true that is, but if it is…thank the lord!
@@lotusinn3 Yes there hasn't been a sighting since 2021. Apparently there are still vigilant searches just to be sure, continued for at least 3 years after the last sighting as suggested by federal guidelines.
Hornet: so you chose death huh? Bee that sacrificed himself: not death. *SACRIFICE* . Hive: *LETS JUMP THIS MOTHA FUCKA!!!!* Hornet: *terrified demonic screams*
