Meet ZhuZhana, a hornet who was born a worker but died a queen.

This is her accepting food from me for the very first time.

And this is her story:

That fateful Saturday, a pair of duelling hornets crashed our BBQ. One flew off but the other limped away, her wing having been shredded by her opponent’s jaws.

This was just the first of the many things she would teach me: when hornets battle each other, they go for the wings, and the moment they inflict enough damage to render their opponent flightless, they take off, leaving the defeated opponent to its fate.

At first glance, the downed hornet was in deep trouble – bruised and battered and suddenly pedestrian. Under any ordinary circumstances, this would have meant she would be torn asunder by an army of gleeful ants. Unless she were lucky and a hungry bird crushed her tiny life out of her first.

Read more: Sugarwater Diplomacy: Making Friends with a Hornet

But as they say, every fight you can walk away from is a good fight. And these were no ordinary circumstances anyway, because the astroturf upon which she happened to land was ours.

She may have lost the duel but she won our love, along with a lifetime supply of sugar water. Our unexpected pet, ZhuZhana The Hornet, might have been born a worker. But she ended up living like royalty.

She would graciously accept our offerings of sugar water. She notably dropped her enthusiasm for assorted fruits once she had gotten a taste of pure sugar but she never ever deigned to accept any kind of meat. Hornets may possess only a few brain cells but our ZhuZhana clearly knew she could no longer return to her nest to feed the baby hornets. Her cozy new home, complete with an endless supply of sugary treats and our adoring stares, was all she had left and she chose to make the most of it. Dearly missed by us, she is survived by her extended family in our hollow apple tree🥰