Joe Rogan Watches a Brutal Battle Between Hornets and Bees

Like you're experiencing so many different facets of life on Earth. Like you're going to all these different environments and ecosystems. You're in the water, you're on the land, you're in jungles, you're on islands. You're a living man. I love it. You're fucking living. It's very cool. I admire it. But it comes, you know, like your buddy, you know, who got the diseases from the Congo, it comes with its costs. Like, you know, we were in Borneo this year and we were at a research station in the middle of the jungle and I don't know enough about bee ecology, but it was like bee season. And I mean, you should see some of our videos on Instagram. It's like, I'm talking about covered head to toe in bees. We were taking like 40 to 50 stings on average per day, per person. You know, and it's just so miserable. 40 to 50 a day? There's eight hours in a day. So you're literally taking stings all day long. Well, no, it's worse than that because we were only at the station in the morning or evenings, right, before waking up or going to bed. The rest of the time we're out in the field not taking stings. So you're taking like 25 when you wake up and like 25 before you go to bed. Oh my God. It's like, ow, ow, ow. It's just so miserable. I'm saying it's eight hours in a day as if a day is a work day. So when you're doing this, is there a way to prevent it? Is there like, can you use like a repellent or? Nothing worked. We, you know, we like put like scarves over our heads and, you know, and that's just one of the things that we're doing. These are not hornets, right? So every time they sting you, they die. Yes. But then when we were on that, getting that Cayman, we, we encountered hornets that put my cameraman into anaphylactic shock. They were so bad. Oh great. Yeah. So we, it comes with its costs, which I think my point was it makes you appreciate the comfort so much more when you get back. See that tarantula hawk in that little glass vial? I did. I was picking it up right, right before you walked in. My buddy Maynard sent me that. Yeah. Yeah. We have these here. Yeah. He's from his, he owns a vineyard and he's got a farm in Arizona and he was telling me about these things and he got a dead one, sent it to me. They're super cool. Look at those eyes of that fucker. It's a bird. And they come out of holes in the ground, hunt tarantulas, like, you know their story. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well tell everybody. Yeah. So I mean the tarantula hawk, it's a parasitic wasp, right? So it comes out, it hunts for tarantulas. It lays its eggs, I believe, in the abdomen of the tarantula and then the eggs hatch and explode out of the tarantula and that's the life cycle. Nature, you cruel bitch. You beautiful, fantastic, complicated, cruel bitch. It's insane. Oh my God. I'm sure you've seen the video of those hornets that visit this beehive. They visit a honey beehive and just start these Japanese hornets and they just start chopping off the heads off the bees. No way. You don't know about this? No. I can't believe I'm telling you about animals. Teach me. Well. Goodness. There's a certain species of hornets that flies into honey bees. I think it's Japanese hornets. They fly into these hives of honey bees and just decimate the honey bees. They cut their heads off with their mandibles, like chop, chop, chop and they're so much bigger. So they fly in and there's this slow motion video of these enormous hornets flying in and decapitating thousands and thousands of honey bees. So what's interesting is the honey bees, they're so outsized. I mean, the hornets are literally like 50, 60 times larger than them. You see it there. They're just, maybe that's not the right number, but they're much, much larger and they're much more powerful. But the honey bees figured out a strategy to kill the hornets. And what they do is they surround them. They get on top of them and then they beat their wings. They all generate heat and then they kill the hornets with the heat of their body. That's unbelievable. Unbelievable. Yeah. So here's this thing that's decapitating everyone in your little village, right? And so you have to jump on top of it and flex. And heat it up, right? And heat it up. Yeah. But the fact that they were able to devise this strategy, see, look how they do it, man. They just grab a hold of these bees and just decapitate them. It's unbelievable. They have these horrific faces, right? These giant mandibles. Yeah, I can see that. And they're just swarm in and they just, look at them, they're just chopping these fucking honey bees apart. You said at nature, you cruel, beautiful bitch. Cruel, beautiful bitch. So 30 hornets versus 30,000 bees. Do you know why the hornets are doing this? Are they getting honey or? Probably want the larva. Larva, yeah. Yeah. They probably want the larva or they want the honey. They want something. But look at all these dead fucking bees with no heads. Bizarre. Crazy. It's nuts. I mean, it's just so weird that nature devises these sort of strategies to prevent overpopulation and that there's this balance that takes place where the bees are threatened by something that's very bee-like. So you see how they're getting on top of them? Yeah. So that's their strategy for dealing. They all get on top of them. So you see a bunch of them now and he's trying to get away, but he can't fly away. And so then they swarm and then they eventually kill him. So you think that actually cooks the wasp? Something that overheats their body and it, see, look how many of them are on there. There's something that it does where it overheats their body. Wow. I mean, look at the size of the size comparison. They're so much bigger. Imagine if you had that hornet that was six feet long. Oh my God. Like I think giant insects would be the worst. The worst. Yeah. The worst I think would be praying mantis. They scare the shit out of me. We've been on a praying mantis kick lately. We watched them kill rats and everything. Hummingbirds. The hummingbird one is the wildest one. They sit by a hummingbird feeder, sit there not moving and the hummingbird comes to feed and they just just spear it, snatch them. It's crazy, right? They're so strong for their size. Yeah. You know, there was one with a mouse and the mouse is so much bigger than the praying mantis. The praying mantis just jacks this mouse. It's crazy. It's wild. It is. It's a wild creature, man. Yeah. It's cool looking though. I see them all the time. I find them all the time when I'm running. You're here in LA, right? Oh yeah. Yeah. They're all over the place. Yeah. Yeah. No, they're amazingly cool and very diverse. You know, there's huge ones, there's small ones, they're spread out all over the world. They're an amazing group of animals. What is this? One got a snake? This is lots of them. It's like a highlight video. Oh my God. Look at that. It's got a fucking snake. I think we can't even imagine how strong they would be if they were our size. I think they would run right through walls. Oh yeah. They would. I mean, look at this fucker. He's taking on a giant snake. That snake is like two feet long and he's a little ass, little ass, a pregnantis and he's fucking it up. He's literally eating it. Yeah. Yeah. Just pulling chunks out of there. They're insane and they have such crazy eyesight and like they're literally covered in body armor with their exoskeleton. Like they're just, they're amazing. Well, they seem like what you would think of as being like a horrific animal that lives on another planet. Totally. Totally. Like, do you remember that movie Starship Troopers? Of course. I love that movie. That was a great movie. Yeah. I loved it. And that was one of the things in the Starship Troopers, like these big giant insect things that were like. Bursting out of the ground and shooting stuff out of their butts and they were great. I love that movie. Yeah. And Cory Rico. Yeah. That was a fun movie, right? Yeah. It was kind of tongue in cheek. Totally. But also like really gory and violent. Totally. Yeah. Neil Patrick Harris. Yeah. It's like the genius. Yeah. It's great. That was such a fun movie. Yeah, man. That's great stuff. I love that. I love that. I love that. I love that. I love that. I love that. I love that. I love that. I love that. I love that. I love that. I love that. I love that. I love that. I love that. I love that. I love that. I love that. I love that. I love that. I love that. I love that. I love that. I love that. I love that. I love that. I love that. I love that. I love that. I love that. I love that. I love that.