And You Thought Wasps Were Bastards.

Yikes is all I can say about this video. These are Japanese Hornets. They might not look that bad at the start of this video until you see them in scale with normal Bees. They’re about the size of your thumb and the worlds largest Hornets. The Japanese Hornets sting is so strong it can dissolve human flesh and they kill about 70 people each year in Japan. They’re sting also gives out an odour that attracts other Japanese Hornets.

This is a video of a small group of Japanese Hornets taking out a whole hive of Bees for they’re honey and young. Yep that right. They kill thousands of Bees in hours just to steal they’re honey and eat they’re larvae.



What I like about this video is the over the top narrator and Jaws 2 style camera shot of riding on the Hornets back as they approach the hive.

Of course the Honey bee have started to evolve a new trick of they’re own:

“When a hornet scout locates and approaches a Japanese honey bee hive it will emit specific pheromonal hunting signals. When the honey bees detect these pheromones, a hundred or so will gather near the entrance of the nest and keep it open, apparently to draw the hornet further into the hive or allow it to enter on its own. As the hornet enters the nest, a large mob of about five hundred honey bees surround it, completely covering it and preventing it from moving, and begin quickly vibrating their flight muscles. This has the effect of raising the temperature of the honey bee mass to 47 °C (117 °F). The honey bees can just tolerate this temperature, but the hornets cannot survive more than 45 °C (113 °F), and die. Often several bees perish along with the intruder, but the death of the hornet scout prevents it from bringing reinforcements which could wipe out the colony.” {Wikipedia}


Your taking your own life in your hands quoting from Wikipedia but they have a picture so I think it could well be true (unless some twelve year old kid has got the better of me).

No wonder Japanese Comics and Cartoons have the best Monsters\Creatures in the world. Just look at how messed up they’re wildlife is. Just a shame it cost 70 lives a year. We’d draw better monster in the UK if we had more to go on then Daddy long legs and slugs on milk bottles.