Hornet Hole



A level seen in video games that takes place almost exclusively in a beehive (or Hornet Hole). Due to the nature of this level, it is in the realm almost exclusively of Platform Games. It has sticky honey or beeswax that will get stuck on characters and will often have a mazelike level design. It goes without saying that Everything's Worse with Bees. There will be a Queen or King bee that needs to be fought. Of course, this videogame setting isn't limited to bees. Wasps, hornets and other suitably annoying flying, stinging insects can have their homes invaded by intrepid heroes as well. Since this level is full of enemy types that usually can't be defeated by traditional means, it can easily become That One Level.

Related tropes that can be seen in this type of level are The Swarm, Hive Mind, Synchronized Swarming, Bee-Bee Gun and Gosh Hornet.


 * RARE was a fan of bringing these levels to players...
 * Donkey Kong Country 2 brought us Hornet Hole, Rambi Rumble, Parrot-Chute Panic and King Zing Sting.
 * Banjo-Kazooie brought us this in a very limited fashion in the Click Clock wood.
 * The highest parts of Cloud Cuckooland's mountain in Banjo Tooie.
 * Conkers Bad Fur Day featured you going into a hornet's hangout to rescue a beehive. Here the bees are pretty OK. Hornets, though ...
 * Super Mario Galaxy brings us Honeyhive Galaxy and the Honeyclimb Galaxy. Super Mario Galaxy 2 features the Honeybloom and Honeyhop galaxies. Slightly inverted, however, in that the bees are friendly, and the sticky honey can be used to scale walls.
 * Stage 4 of the Tree Zone in Super Mario Land 2 Six Golden Coins.
 * The obscure game Zapper has one called Crazy Apiary. It also doubled as an Unexpected Shmup Level.
 * Dungeons and Dragons adventure "WG7 Castle Greyhawk", level "Queen of the Honeybee Hive": The PCs must fight a group of opponents with bee-themed names.
 * The Nui-Rama hive in the Mata Nui Online Game
 * The action-RPG Entomorph: Plague of the Darkfall has a hive of giant bee/wasp-like creatures (called Panorpids) as one of its 'dungeons'.
 * The Hive in Dungeon Crawl. Hope you like fighting killer bees.
 * The Apiary in BioShock (series).
 * The Mantid Hive in Turok 2: Seeds of Evil.
 * A few rooms in Nethack, complete with queen bee.
 * Little Big Adventure 2 has the island of the Mosquibees which includes a large hive although.
 * The Castelia Gym in Pokémon Black and White is, understandably for a Bug gym, themed around a beehive, complete with sticky honey walls to break through.
 * The Biosphere in Metroid: Other M has a single room that is a giant hive of Ki-Hunters, aggressive insectoid enemies driven only more aggressive by a roar heard nearby. You fight a bunch of them and then the King (who just sits in his hive) as a minor boss fight.
 * The derelict Collector Ship in Mass Effect 2 can be considered this due to their general layout and hive-like design, including millions of victims in pods upon the walls.
 * Honey Bee Hollow in Frogger 3D.
 * The Macintosh computer game Bugdom has a level and a boss fight that both take place in a beehive. The type of enemies include the flying bees that appeared in the earlier two levels that try to sting you, muscular worker drone bees that fire their stingers at you, and bee larvae with bee heads and stingers sticking out of them, the normal bees and muscular drones die once they lose their stingers. The first level to take place in the beehive also has honey which if you land in it is a one hit kill as you sink in it and lose a life (unless you have the swim in water-type that would normally kill you cheat on), as for the boss fight you do battle against a queen bee who shoots honey and summons the bee larvae with the heads sticking out, to damage her you need to use your rolling attack move on her.