30 hornets vs. 30,000 bees = "300" with flying insects (video)

Spoiler: the hornets win. Above, snip of BBC documentary with narrator commentary. Below, the EPIC MUSIC REMIX VIDEO.

Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

MORE: bees • insects • Nature • Science • video

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Guest

well, that’s where at least 10K of the bees went. Awesome camerawork.
Luke Snyder

Thanks for the new nightmare fodder. Sweet Zombie Jesus, that was horrifying.
http://twitter.com/bendewhurst Benjamin Dewhurst

At first I thought “oh, hey, cool, bees and hornets fighting”. Then I saw the horror AND WILL NEVER SLEEP AGAIN.
User 100

Bees fight back, by “suffocating” hornet:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EZtXNIT5QQ
- Petzl
  
  for ppl who tl;dr the video: the bees swarm over the hornet, causing it to overheat: hornets, with larger bodies, have a tolerance 2 degrees lower than bees. a hornet cannot liberate its heat from underneath the swarm of 100-200 bee bodies and dies. uh, but only the japanese bees have evolved this trick; european bees haven’t.
  
  tl;dr tl;dr japanese honeybees rock.
andyhavens

My wife is deathly allergic to honeybees = this is frickin’ awesome
- http://pulse.yahoo.com/_OAUXAA362EXWLYVMPJOKLFB5JQ Incipient Madness
  
  She’s probably also allergic to Japanese hornets as well. Keep that Epipen ready if you go to Japan.
  - Jim Thomason
    
    Japanese hornets don’t really cause allergic reactions so much as they inject a caustic chemical that literally liquifies your flesh.
    
    a case of raid or suit of armor may be a better choice.
    - Guest
      
      not if one gets in your armor!
erinelizabeth11

This made me so glum :( Honeybees are so amazing and so fragile.
EeyoreX

More like Camerons “Aliens” with flying domsticised insects. ‘Cause the hornets are clearly not the good guys in this conflict, even if they’re in minority until they’ve eradicated their prey.

Seriously, that was traumatic to watch. I want to go out there right now and whack hornets with a golf club. Stay away from my honey!
- Mujokan
  
  Any particular reason why my joke comparing Spartans to Libertarians got deleted? I thought it was kind of funny.
Greg Lester

And then they ate the babies!
erinelizabeth11

That’s awesome :) This made me feel slightly better about the video above, although I wonder what the Asian bees would have done had 30 hornets arrived and not one?
madopal

More like the Battle at Helm’s Deep if the Riders of Rohan & Elves had never showed up.
- Mujokan
  
  Elves don’t show up at Helm’s Deep, it’s Rohirrim and trees.
  
  Don’t tell me I’m wrong, let me pretend the movies never happened.
http://marjaerwin.livejournal.com/ Marja Erwin

[read the book, not seen the movie, not seen the video]

So it’s a racist, sexist, homophobic attack on history?
MooseDesign

Beautifully, stunningly shot video… and I admit I am guilty of anthropomorphizing the conflict so I felt awful for those bees!
bargainoutlet

Switch out the “succulent” larvae for power and money and we’re not all that different.
CSBD

those hornets kill a number of people every year. I am sure they serve some purpose in the eco system… I just wish they went extinct though. There are not enough honey bees as it is.
- Jim Thomason
  
  Their purpose in the eco system is to create nightmares, upon which they feed.
Trent Hawkins

Japanese Bees don’t take no shit from a Wasp: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6m40W1s0Wc
- EeyoreX
  
  Booya! Thats what I’m talking about! Roasted!
  
  Thanks, I needed to watch that for peace of mind.
- Rich Keller
  
  At the beginning of the video you link to, I thought, Yay! The dolphin is coming to rescue the bees!”
- El Stinko
  
  Holy crap I thought the original video was awesome, but this response is AMAZING!!! WOW!!
Bevatron Repairman

I liked the shot of around 1:52-1:58 of the one honeybee actually giving the hornet some grief, for all it was worth. The insect version of those couple of guys who their P-4os in the air over Oahu and took out six Japanese planes before being shot down themselves.
- Mujokan
  
  Best analogy so far.
Antinous / Moderator

Sadly, I can’t find a clip of Katherine Hepburn’s monologue about the turtles and the birds from Suddenly Last Summer.
igpajo

Hate hornets! I’ve run into bees and hornets on the job (cable repair tech) and in my experience, bees will leave you alone if you back off or just move slowly. Hornets and Wasps…they’ll chase you down. They scare the crap out of me everytime.
- Mujokan
  
  Straight boring predators, man. Honey bees are just amazing.
Guest

The crafty 99% at work. That made me feel remarkably better.
zombiebob

Damn Nature! You Scary!
http://twitter.com/nesnora nesnora

War. War never changes.
Jorpho

Would someone please explain to me why right-clicking embedded Youtube videos on BoingBoing and selecting “Copy Video URL” frequently brings up URLs with “-nocookie” in them? They don’t work when I paste them into an address bar later unless I take the “-nocookie” portion out.

I thought it was some odd predilection on the part of the editors, but the link under “the EPIC MUSIC REMIX VIDEO” there doesn’t have “-nocookie”.
- http://twitter.com/matcatastrophe mat catastrophe
  
  Because the internet sucks.
Marc45

What is the point of putting the “spoiler” right under the video window where everyone who doesn’t want to know the ending can read it?
Campion

Wow. This reminds me of the time me and 29 of my friends each had to kill 1,000 little people just to eat their young. Worth it.
Donald Petersen

“Is this gonna be a standup fight, sir, or another bughunt?”
- Mujokan
  
  Nuke the hive from orbit. It’s the only way to bee sure.
  - Donald Petersen
    
    “They’re coming outta the goddamn walls!”
    
    …okay, I’m done.
bruckelsprout

Those poor bees. I hate bullies.
MollyMaguire

Like so many amazing documentaries with awesome camera work (or interesting interviews), the music spoils it for me. And those sounds.. are those real or dubbed in later? How can we know?
JohnBerry

Didn’t watch. After reading some comments I want to but I can’t right now. Maybe. I’m in timid mode today.
Maverick

I fucking hate hornets.
Nadreck

“Stop him you fools! He’s only one hornet!”
snark^

Not one hornet was green. V. v. disappointed.
sidereal

Ah. . 300, in which the Spartans invaded harmless Persia and ate Xerxes’ children. Wait, what?
Daemonworks

Earlier documentary, same topic, just as epic.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fTrSOFyfxs
El Stinko

Christ, what assholes.
http://francojtorres.com/ Franco J. Torres

This is Sparta!
Daniel Klein

Wait. How come Maggie didn’t post this?
Sooper8

What is the point of putting a spoiler so close in proximity to the spoiler alert?
In fact, was there any need for either?
Mister44

I remember watching a video like this 20 years ago and I was horrified for the bees. IIRC, they live in Asia, so our sweet bees are safe.
coffee100

Don’t be too sad. Schedule a rematch between 30 giant hornets and a hive of African honeybees. The European hive would be avenged gloriously.

Reminds me of the Richard Pryor routine:

“Roll the window up, dear.”

“But it’s just a honeybee–”

“Fuck you. Roll the motherfucking window up. I ain’t never seen no bee look at me like that.”
ant osullivan

need honey bee size hole ‘chicken wire’
trouserarousal

Never get involved in a land war in Asia.
Jim Philips

I kept waiting for the seven samurai to show up and save the day.
Emmet Curran

I’ve been looking but can’t find an explanation as to how the european bees are under attack by asian hornets? is this a controlled experiment or has there been an introduction of one species to the others habitat? or did i pick the whole thing up wrong?
Adam Holloway

It would be very helpful if there was an explanation of the circumstances involved in the production of this video.
fjsr

Still looking for the ”No animals were harmed in the production of this video” in the rolling credits.
Ed O’Connor

Ugh. Reminds me of that hour-long cable program last night where pods of killer whales attacked and killed a baby gray whale in Monterey Bay. Brutal nature.
http://theangryhug.blogspot.com William Owen

Fuck you jerkass hornet jerks!