Vespa mandarinia japonica
| Japanese giant hornet | |
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| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| Class: | Insecta |
| Order: | Hymenoptera |
| Family: | Vespidae |
| Genus: | Vespa |
| Species: | Vespa mandarinia |
| Subspecies: | V. mandarinia japonica |
The Japanese giant hornet (Vespa mandarinia japonica) is a subspecies of the world's largest hornet, the Asian giant hornet (V. mandarinia). It is a large insect, with adults frequently growing to greater than 4.5 centimetres (1.8 in) long, with a wingspan greater than 6 centimetres (2.4 in). It has a large yellow head with large eyes, and a dark brown thorax with an abdomen banded in brown and yellow. The Japanese giant hornet has three small, simple eyes on the top of the head between the two large compound eyes. As the name implies, it is endemic to the Japanese islands, where it prefers rural areas where it can find trees to nest in. In Japanese it is known as the ōsuzumebachi (（大雀蜂、大胡蜂）?, literally "giant sparrow bee").
Workers forage to feed their siblings. Their diet consists of a wide range of insects, including crop pests, and for this reason the hornets are regarded as beneficial. The workers dismember the bodies of their prey to return only the most nutrient-rich body parts, such as flight muscles, to the nest. There, the workers chew the prey into a paste before feeding the larvae which in return produce a fluid consumed by the workers. This fluid is known as vespa amino acid mixture (VAAM). Synthetic VAAM is being produced artificially as a dietary supplement, with claims that it can increase athletic performance. In many Japanese mountain villages, the hornet is considered a delicacy when fried.
In Japan, beekeepers often prefer European honey bees because they are more productive than the endemic Japanese honey bees. However, it can be difficult to maintain a captive hive of European honey bees, as the giant hornets are devastating to the bee hives. Once a Japanese giant hornet has located a hive of European honey bees it leaves pheromone markers around it that quickly attract nest-mates to converge on the hive. An individual hornet can kill forty European honey bees a minute while a group of 30 hornets can destroy an entire hive containing 30,000 bees in less than four hours. The hornets kill and dismember the bees, returning to their nest with the bee thoraxes, which they feed to their larvae, leaving heads and limbs behind. The honey and bee larvae are also taken to feed the hornet larvae.
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