Natural World - Season 26 - Eps 4: Buddha, Bees and the Giant Hornet Queen
The Giant Japanese Hornet is the fiercest looking insect on earth, and one of the deadliest. This film follows the remarkable life of one giant hornet queen, as she emerges from hibernation and starts to build up a colony in an old temple garden. Her army of warriors terrorise the beautiful mountain valley in their constant struggle to find food for their hungry grubs. In a series of dramatic pitched battles, the giant hornets massacre thousands of bees, but victory isn't always assured - one local honeybee fights back thanks to a remarkable defensive strategy, and suddenly it is the hornets that are dying. A beekeeper monk bears witness to the rising power of the giant hornet colony, and despite the hornet's attacks on his own bees, he reveals a deep respect for these incredible predators.
About Natural World
Title: Natural World
First Air Date: 1983-10-30
Last Air Date: 2020-03-20
Status: Returning Series
Rating: 7.1/10 (from 26 votes)
Language: EN
Seasons: 40
Total Episodes: 543
Network: BBC Two
Genres: Documentary
Production Companies: BBC Studios, BBC Studios Natural History Unit, BBC
Synopsis
Natural World is a nature documentary television series broadcast annually on BBC Two and regarded by the BBC as its flagship natural history brand. It is currently the longest-running series in its genre on British television, with more than 400 episodes broadcast since its inception in 1983. Natural World is produced by the BBC Natural History Unit in Bristol, but individual programmes can be in-house productions, collaborative productions with other broadcasters or films made and distributed by independent production companies and purchased by the BBC. Natural World programmes are often broadcast as PBS Nature episodes in the USA. Since 2008, most Natural World programmes have been shot and broadcast in high definition.
Cast
David Attenborough
Self - Host
John Hannah
Narrator (voice)
Juliet Stevenson
Narrator (voice)
