Original subtitles

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.

¶ ¶