Natural World (1983) s26e04 Episode Script

This is a giant hornet.
She's the largest wasp on the planet, and carries enough venom to kill a man.
She's a queen and her swollen belly reveals she's about to become a mother.
Alone, she has just survived the bitterest of winters in the Japanese Alps.
Now, she has to raise a family.
But her family is also a militia which will fight epic battles and strike fear and hatred through the heart of this valley.
Despite the carnage she causes and the enemies she makes, the queen hornet will find one surprising ally.
After six months of hibernation, the hornet queen must eat within 24 hours of awakening or she will die.
Her waist is so thin, she is unable to eat solid food.
Only rising sap will keep her going.
The queen has one goal.
She must produce a new generation of hornet queens by the end of the summer.
To do this, she must first raise an army.
But this army of hornets will make her deeply unpopular in this orchard-filled valley.
Beekeeping is big business here.
Honey bees are a giant hornet's favourite food.
To a beekeeper, hornets are enemy number one.
But one man feels differently.
He is passionate about his bees but he is tolerant towards all creatures - even giant hornets.
My name is Yamaguchi.
I'm a Buddhist monk, an orchid grower and a keeper of honey bees.
Once, when I was cycling as a child, I was attacked by giant hornets.
I escaped and survived, despite terrible stings.
In spite of this, I've become fascinated by them.
And every spring since I was attacked, I've gone looking for hornet queens.
Finding a new queen is exciting but it's also a sign of trouble ahead.
Face to face with the queen, he could easily crush her, and most people would.
Yamaguchi knows the consequences of her existence in the valley.
He hopes their paths will not cross again.
But as a Buddhist, he believes nature must be allowed to take its course.
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 kilometres 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 kilometres every day as she prepares for the birth of her army.
Multiple layers of chitin form an impenetrable body armour 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.
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.
Run-off from the storm forces the river to flood.
She must escape but she can't take her larvae with her.
It's a terrible setback, but it's not the last the valley will see of this queen.
As the sun warms the sodden landscape, wild Japanese honey bees are on the move.
Each year, they leave their old nest and swarm.
The honey reserve stored in their stomachs won't last long, and they must find a new home as a matter of urgency.
It's something Yamaguchi plans to take advantage of.
Spring is a magical time.
The countryside bursts into life.
Blossom decorates the trees and the sky hums with the sound of insects.
It is also time to collect my wild bees.
All I need is an orchid in bloom and an empty beehive.
Now, I must wait.
When his oriental orchid casts its spell on the breeze, deceit is in the air.
It's not long before a wild honey bee is bewitched.
It's not nectar that's lured it in, but the smell of its mortal enemy.
Thinking it's a hornet, the bee attacks the petals.
Determined to fight, she becomes ensnared, forced to bear pollen from the plant.
By mimicking the pheromone of the giant hornet, the orchid is exploiting the ancient antagonism between the two insects.
Another pheromone calls in more bees, They cannot overcome their instinct to attack what they believe to be their greatest enemy.
Some bees tire of the fight and turn their attention to the empty hive.
Nest sites in the wild are hard to find, so this is a gift.
But then they all desert.
Perhaps the hive isn't good enough.
Yamaguchi remains patient.
He has faith in the orchid's power over the bees.
And then they come.
The whole swarm destroys the orchid bloom.
And, they've brought their queen.
She approves of their new home.
The scarred orchid is testament to the bees' hatred of their bitter rival, the Japanese giant hornet.
The wild bees can be aggressive, but towards humans they are gentle and Yamaguchi can handle them without fear.
Now he's responsible for their care.
Wild bees are less settled than domestic honey bees, and may abscond from a hive at any time.
They will stay for only as long as they feel safe.
But for now, they seem content with the domestic arrangement.
Meanwhile, the queen hornet has re-established herself.
She's found a new nest site in the woods at the edge of the temple graveyard.
A whole month has gone by since the spring flood.
She's laboriously rebuilt her nest and each cell now contains a grub.
This time the queen reaches an important milestone.
Her firstborn begins to spin a silken cap.
After hours of spinning, the cap dries and hardens to form a protective cocoon that shields the dramatic changes within.
In just six days, the maggot transforms into a winged killer.
She is born again.
The queen's first daughter is also her first warrior.
Born into the dark, all she knows is the smell of her mother, and that's enough to bind her.
The queen's pheromones will remind all her daughters that only she is fertile, and for as long as that lasts, her all-female workforce will do her bidding.
The more successful this empire becomes, the bigger the threat to the bees in the valley.
Mr Kamatsu has been a commercial beekeeper for 60 years.
He keeps European bees, which yield ten times more honey than native Japanese bees.
Almost all his life, Mr Kamatsu has been plagued by giant hornets.
But the queen is behind schedule, so this year might be his lucky break although she has produced several deadly warriors.
Initially, the workers hunt for food in the nearby woods.
They aren't agile enough to catch insects on the wing.
They stalk their prey on the forest floor.
But there are other predators in the woods.
Only the strongest will take on a giant hornet.
The mantis made a big mistake.
The corpse is dismembered, but the hunters don't stop to eat.
They cannot digest meat.
These rations are for the queen's ravenous young.
The meat is shared out equally amongst workers, who then distribute it to the larvae.
In return, the fat grubs regurgitate amino acids for the adults.
These give the workers incredible stamina.
They can fly up to 60 kilometres each day for queen and colony.
By mid-July, 30 adult workers are active in the nest.
Each remains in service to her mother and the growing number of grubs.
They demand more meat.
The giant hornets now need a more reliable source of food.
Kamatsu's hives of European honey bees are an obvious target.
The first hunter arrives alone.
She seizes a defending honey bee and carries the prize home.
With a supply line open, the empire is set to expand.
The queen and her army are on a roll.
New eggs, new grubs, new workers.
Every day, the empire grows faster, driven on by the relentless scraping of the larvae, and fuelled by a regular diet of European honey bees.
Observing nature is central to the Buddhist way.
The path to enlightenment comes from such simple tasks.
Besides, I need to assess the risk to my own bees.
It's obvious from the activity at the nest entrance that the queen is making up for lost time.
Almost a metre below the surface, the nest interior is the size of a basketball.
Her army is now 100-strong and she's laying 25 eggs a day.
Her pheromones continue to command total devotion from her daughters.
Builder hornets must work quickly to keep up with the queen.
The nest is made from wood fibres.
Chewed up and mixed with saliva, they dry to form a strong paper - good for preserving temperature and humidity.
The queen looks for empty cells.
Those she finds are quickly filled with an egg.
But her growing success creates its own problem.
There are so many grubs that the supply of single honey bees is no longer enough.
The insistent scraping is like a call to arms, driving the hornets to kill.
The bees rush out in defence, but this is their undoing.
One by one, they're picked off.
More hornets join the attack.
The hornets emit a chemical rallying cry and this triggers a unique phenomenon.
They no longer carry bee carcases back to the nest.
Instead, they slaughter, then cast aside the body of every defender they meet.
It's the start of a mass attack.
Each warrior can kill up to 40 bees a minute.
European bees outnumber the hornets 1000-1, but they didn't evolve alongside these huge Asian predators and have no effective defence.
Within the hour, 10,000 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 scent of the prize inside drives them to fight until they drop.
30,000 honey bees have died in three hours, falling victim to just 30 giant hornets.
By midday, the defences 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 defenceless young are butchered.
The succulent and nutritious flesh will be a massive boost to the hornets' own larvae, and their queen's fortunes.
The valley is beginning to feel the full force of her empire.
For a commercial beekeeper, the loss of a hive is devastating.
In a bad year, they can lose half a million bees to giant hornets.
They retaliate with sweet but sticky traps that seduce foraging scouts.
Whenever nests are discovered, they are gassed and unearthed.
Beekeepers will risk anything to keep their bees safe.
- Kampai! - Kampai! In celebration, the hornets are deep fried.
They are considered a delicacy.
In this case, revenge is a dish best served with chopsticks.
By building her nest near sacred ground, the queen has a stroke of good fortune.
Her empire escapes the hornet hunter's attention.
I have mixed feelings about her survival.
Her huge army poses a serious threat to my honey bees.
However, my calling forbids me from injuring any living creature.
All I can do is watch over my bees and see how fate will unfold.
I hope all that pollen you're carrying isn't too heavy, little bee.
The life of a honey bee is hard enough.
During the height of summer, a foraging bee works so furiously, that it can wear itself out in less than a month.
Half its usual life expectancy.
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 behaviour.
They make honey stores 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.
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 honey bees 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.
Surrounded by vibrating bodies, the hornet at the core of the bee 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.
Killing the scout is not enough to keep them safe.
The bees must also remove her scent mark, so that other hornets will not find them.
My bees have saved themselves from the mass attack, but only because they caught the scout.
Next time, they may not be so lucky.
The dead hornet won't be missed.
For the queen, she was just one of nearly 300 warriors.
Her nest now contains an equal number of workers and larvae.
Once this crucial ratio is reached, the queen changes tack.
She can begin to lay eggs containing males and future queens.
These larvae still need massive amounts of food, but the abundance of summer is over.
To satisfy the larvae, the workers are driven to attack unusual and fearsome prey - a three-inch long-horned beetle.
The hornet seems desperate.
But the beetle's armour is just too tough.
This warrior has failed today - the grubs go hungry.
The future of the queen's bloodline seems uncertain.
Some are already starving in their cells.
Despite her best efforts, the queen has run out of time.
There is one other food source that lives on into the cold weather, but it's an army strong enough to rival the queen's.
Yellow hornets have built a nest in a shrine.
Inside is a feast of protein-rich larvae.
It is inevitable that the queen's empire will face a stark choice.
To attack their most dangerous enemy or starve.
The stage is set for a war between hornets.
Yellow hornets are a little smaller than the giants, but there are 1,500 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.
The giants are outnumbered and each attacks alone.
It's not a good strategy.
The yellows despatch giant after giant with a lethal sting to the back of the neck.
It's the only chink in a giant hornet's armour.
Today's battle is lost, but this is a war of attrition.
The following morning, the giants begin a new wave of attacks.
And this time, they gain control of the nest envelope.
A breach is made in the yellow hornets' defences.
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.
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.
She is killed.
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 emerge.
First males, and then new queens burst forth from their cells .
.
and a different kind of battle begins.
Males fight for the right to mate.
The queens will only mate once before escaping, and every one 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.
As I prepare my orchids for winter, I discover a new queen.
Her very existence means the old queen's cycle of nature is complete.
I can't say for certain what will happen next year, but in allowing her to live alongside my bees, I place my trust in the balance of nature.