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From a distance

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a human city can look like
a colony of insects.

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Millions of individuals
living in close contact

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cooperating to
create elaborate structures.

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But real insect societies
are very different.

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Human cities have only been around
for a few thousand years

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since people learned to farm crops.

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But insects have been
living in communities

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for tens of millions of years.

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Every human in a city is
still an individual

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but in insect societies
individuals don't matter

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Every insect is dedicated to the
greater good of the colony

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a slave to the metropolis

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a devoted subject of the queen.

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Here, there's no such thing
as a classless society.

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But most insects live solitary lives

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so why do some choose
the company of others?

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These sawfly larvae are called
' spitfire bugs' by Australians

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and it's not a
good idea to annoy them.

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If they get upset

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they all spit out a stinging foam

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and the more there are
the more effective the deterrent.

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They're so wrapped up in each other
they even move as one animal.

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But there's always one

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So the rest stop, and wait

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and tap their tails on the branch.

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It's not impatience

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they're calling to the straggler
to guide it home.

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Any form of social behaviour
depends on communication.

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Ganging together for mutual defence
is a kind of social behaviour

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but the great insect societies
are built on a different bond

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that between parents and young.

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Most insects lay lots of eggs

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and leave them to
fend for themselves.

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Some enough will survive
and the rest will just die.

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But some insects invest
in fewer off spring

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and take good care of them.

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They give them
the best start in life.

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This burying beetle from North America
is one of these model parents.

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She's looking for a corpse
in this case a dead mouse.

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She'll meet her future mate here
and between them

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they dig its grave.

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It takes them all night

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working together
to bury the mouse

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but once it's safe in
an underground crypt

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it will feed their new family.

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The beetle grubs don't
have to feed themselves

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their mother feeds them
on predigested mouse puree.

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She calls them to meals by scraping
her abdomen on her wing case.

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Mother and young a simple
basic society.

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With such tender care

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they're fully grown in only five days

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and they'll soon be ready to
leave the grave

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for the land of the living.

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But some family ties
are much longer lasting.

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The cool damp forests of
the American Appalachian mountains

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hide a king of cockroach

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that stays in a family group
for up to three years.

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They're found in rotten logs

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and they only eat rotten wood

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and there's no shortage of that

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With so much food within reach

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why would the young be so dependent
on their parents?

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Wood is almost impossible to digest.

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Cockroaches can only break it down

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with the help of microbes
that live in their gut.

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Without these microbes

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the cockroaches could be surrounded
by food and still starve to death.

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The young cockroaches
must get these microbes

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from their parents and to do that

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they must eat their parents' faeces.

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As the young reaches grow, they moult
and when they moult

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they also lose the lining of their gut
and their vital microbes.

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They have no choice but to stay
with their parents

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without them
they would die.

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But such family units are the foundation
of the great insect empires

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where the parents never
let their offspring go

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keeping them as slaves
for the rest of their lives.

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Termites.

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This towering city was built
by just one family of African termites

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but their families are huge

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up to three million individuals
living together.

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The human equivalent of this castle

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would be a structure twenty five times
the size of the Empire State building.

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Endless tunnels
like streets and alleyways

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and yet not a glimmer
of light reaches them.

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And deep in the heart
of the labyrinth

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lies the mother of the
entire society the queen.

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She's huge
a massive egg laying machine.

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She lays thousands of eggs every day

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and she can live for thirty years.

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She can't even feed herself

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she has to be tended by her children.

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Her consort, the king
is dwarfed by her bloated body.

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All the rest of the termites
are sterile

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they'll never have offspring
of their own.

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The queen secretes chemicals
that stops them from breeding.

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Their only choice is to become
workers, soldiers, nurses, builders.

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They're all blind
labouring by instinct

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working to a hidden plan to
build the castle

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that is their prison.

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Three million termites use up oxygen
and give off heat

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so the fortress has to be
fully air conditioned.

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Warm air rises from the living quarters
into a huge chamber

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and then passes through tunnels
close to the outside

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where fresh oxygen diffuses in.

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Now it flows down into the cooling plant
deep underground.

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These vanes are damp
and as the air moves between them

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it's cooled before passing
back to the living area.

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Every kind of termite mound is different
but just as intricate.

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And termites exist in such huge numbers

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that their cities dominate
the tropical landscape.

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Some Australian termites can sense
the Earth's magnetic field

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they orientate their cities
to face the rising sun

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to catch the early morning warmth.

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If some termites are the most advanced
builders in the insect world

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others can wreak
the most terrible devastation.

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These termites don't
build their own home

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they move into somebody else's.

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A colony of half a million termites
can eat nearly five tons of wood a year.

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In the warm climate of
the southern United States

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termites do more than a billion dollars
worth of damage each year

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more than all
other natural disasters put together.

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And humans take it personally.

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Very personally.

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Most insurance companies

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won't cover the cost of
the devastation it's too common.

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So the householder has to finance
the assault on the enemy.

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The house is sealed in an airtight tent
this is chemical warfare.

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A gas, lethal to termites
brings' armageddon' for one colony.

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But there are always others
out there, waiting.

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This battle may have been won
by humans

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but the war is never over.

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One other group of insects has
developed advanced communities

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but they are very different
from those of termites.

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Bees, ants and wasps live in
all female societies.

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This swarm is a sisterhood

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united in the service of their queen.

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Unlike termites
males form no part of this society

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they're just given a brief chance
to mate with the queen

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then discarded.

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None of these females will
ever breed themselves

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their sole purpose is to
shepherd their new queen

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as they set off to
form another colony.

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They surround her

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protecting her without hesitation

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they would lay down
their lives for her.

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Compared to honeybees

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bumble bee colonies seem more
like a village than a city

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but their structure is
still based on slavery.

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In all bee colonies
the queen rules supreme.

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She's raised a workforce of daughters

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and she secretes chemicals
that stop them from breeding

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if a worker bee dares to
lay an egg of her own

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the queen will eat it.

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Each bee is ready to
join the labour force

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as soon as she emerges
from her cocoon

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and her job will depend on her age.

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They youngest are put straight
to work inside the nest

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processing food
and tending the nursery

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looking after the grubs
their sisters.

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They keep them clean
and make repairs to the wax cradles.

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The more senior workers are
allowed to leave the nest

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bringing back pollen
for the rest of their sister.

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Bees process
and stockpile this food

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so that the colony will have enough
supplies during hard times.

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These little colonies are so efficient
at gathering pollen

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that humans can employ them
as a workforce.

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Despite all the advanced
technology supporting

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commercial tomato greenhouses

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bumble bees are still
the most effective way

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to pollinate the flowers.

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The bee hangs onto the flower

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and shakes down
every last bit of pollen.

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This 'buzz pollination'
is so efficient

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there are tomatoes on the supermarket
shelves all year

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courtesy of bumble bees.

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Compared to the cottage industry
of bumble bees

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honey bee colonies are run
like factories.

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But these are no ordinary honey bees.

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Twice the size of normal bees

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and very mean

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each honeycomb is guarded

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by twenty five thousand bees
with an attitude.

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They can stockpile enormous
quantities of honey

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enough to support a huge colony
through bad weather.

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They're so efficient

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they can even survive in the highest
mountain range in the world

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the Himalayas.

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If any honey comb
was safe from theft

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it should be these.

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But humans have a strange addiction
to anything sweet

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the villagers of Nepal risk
their lives to reach this honey.

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They climb down the 80 metre
cliff to the combs

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and drive off the angry bees
with smoke

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just long enough to reach
for the prize.

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Honey is so precious that it can
and does cost human lives.

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Bee colonies are formidable

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but nothing like as formidable
as some of their relatives.

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Of all the insect societies

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ants are the most organized
they have wars

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00:22:57,843 --> 00:23:01,904
they enslave each other
they even keep livestock.

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Caterpillars, bugs any insects

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that secrete sweet honeydew are farmed
like domestic animals.

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Any other intruders are
just massacred for food.

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00:23:30,442 --> 00:23:31,932
This particular kind of ant herds

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00:23:32,077 --> 00:23:36,707
the caterpillars of the Genevieve
blue butterfly in Australia.

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00:23:40,852 --> 00:23:43,685
The ants nest in cracks
at the base of trees

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00:23:43,822 --> 00:23:47,724
the caterpillars eat mistletoe growing
at the tops of trees.

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Every night

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00:23:54,933 --> 00:23:59,165
the ants herd the caterpillars up
the trunk to let them feed.

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00:24:09,314 --> 00:24:12,909
And then the ants milk the caterpillars
of their secretions

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like an insect dairy farm.

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At dawn

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00:24:39,311 --> 00:24:41,939
the ants drive the caterpillars
back down the tree

216
00:24:42,080 --> 00:24:43,445
and into the nest.

217
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These caterpillars are completely
dependent on their farmers

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the only life they know is
the company of ants.

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Protected, nurtured

220
00:25:04,569 --> 00:25:08,232
they even turn into pupae
still inside the nest.

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Though the butterfly
doesn't provide honeydew

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00:25:21,152 --> 00:25:23,552
it's tolerated by the ants.

223
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It's escorted by a farewell party
and sent on its way

224
00:25:30,629 --> 00:25:32,790
flying the nest for ever.

225
00:25:39,371 --> 00:25:41,430
While some ants manage livestock

226
00:25:41,573 --> 00:25:44,542
others farm crops

227
00:25:45,243 --> 00:25:47,108
leafcutter ants have developed

228
00:25:47,245 --> 00:25:51,773
from a hunter gatherer society to
an agricultural one.

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00:25:52,651 --> 00:25:55,449
Their underground colonies are huge

230
00:25:55,587 --> 00:25:57,452
up to eight million individuals

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organized like an assembly line.

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The biggest workers harvest leaves
there are so many of them

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they can strip a tree in one night.

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00:26:14,673 --> 00:26:19,201
A smaller, mulching caster licks
the leaves clean and chews them up

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00:26:19,344 --> 00:26:22,211
but this paste isn't yet food.

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00:26:22,547 --> 00:26:25,516
It's used to grow a crop a fungus

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that's only found inside these nests

238
00:26:29,220 --> 00:26:32,712
and it's the only food
the ants ever need.

239
00:26:39,564 --> 00:26:41,623
The job of tending
and planting the fungus

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00:26:41,766 --> 00:26:46,066
in their gardens is carried out
by a smaller caste again.

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00:26:51,042 --> 00:26:53,033
Leafcutter ants are probably

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00:26:53,178 --> 00:26:57,114
the most sophisticated social insects
of them all.

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00:26:57,449 --> 00:27:01,283
A huge metropolis
based on division of labour

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where an individual means nothing.

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00:27:06,358 --> 00:27:11,352
Each ant is a tiny component
in the machinery of the colony

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00:27:12,831 --> 00:27:15,800
working together like clockwork.

247
00:27:22,741 --> 00:27:23,969
A network of living

248
00:27:24,109 --> 00:27:29,513
communicating robots that acts
like a single organism.

249
00:27:32,050 --> 00:27:35,781
Humans may consider agriculture
their greatest achievement

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00:27:35,920 --> 00:27:38,514
the springboard to civilization

251
00:27:38,590 --> 00:27:42,788
but ants have been farmers
for millions of years.

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00:27:43,695 --> 00:27:47,426
And for every single human
on the planet Earth

253
00:27:47,565 --> 00:27:51,524
there are at least a million ants