Holy chit, remember those insanely vicious giant asian hornets Jay told us about?

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The efforts to find nests has been getting fairly regular coverage in the news hereabouts for several months. The specialists do not think this is the only nest. They will continue to hunt for them.

They even have been putting tiny radio transmitters on any live wasp they can catch, to follow back to the nest. That has been very hit and miss...well, mostly all miss.
 
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Pretty amazing effort
 
Yup, pretty sure I'm older than Gary, even though I think he's gone at least ten more times around the sun than I have :^D

edit:
got lost :rollseyes:
 
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Scientists Destroyed a Nest of Murder Hornets. Here’s What They Learned.
Officials vacuumed the country’s first nest of so-called murder hornets last month in Washington State. The invasive insects could multiply and kill native bee populations, endangering crops and ecosystems.

Washington State Department of Agriculture workers, wearing protective suits, vacuumed a nest of Asian giant hornets from a tree in Blaine, Wash., on Oct. 24.

Washington State Department of Agriculture workers, wearing protective suits, vacuumed a nest of Asian giant hornets from a tree in Blaine, Wash., on O

Asian giant hornets — better known as murder hornets — inspired menacing headlines throughout the summer amid warnings that the invasive insects could decimate American honeybee populations. Last month, after various sightings across the Pacific Northwest, officials in Washington State discovered and removed the first known murder hornet nest in the United States.

As officials continue to seek out other nests for destruction in hopes of eradicating the hornets from the country, entomologists are revealing what they have learned from the first nest removal.

“It really seems like we got there in the nick of time,” Sven-Erik Spichiger, managing entomologist at the Washington State Department of Agriculture, said at a news conference about the nest’s findings this week.
The nest could have held about 200 queens.



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A tracking device being attached to an Asian giant hornet.

A tracking device being attached to an Asian giant hornet.Credit...Karla Salp/Washington State Department of Agriculture, via Associated Press


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An Asian giant hornet wearing a tracking device.Credit...Karla Salp/Washington State Department of Agriculture, via Associated Press
Late last month, officials in Blaine, Wash., removed the nest of aggressive hornets — which were about to enter their “slaughter phase” — before they could multiply and kill the area’s honeybees. Had they not been removed, the insects could have laid waste to the pollinators vital to the region’s raspberries, blueberries and other crops.
 
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The hornet is not native to the United States and can be more commonly found in Asia, where it has been known to kill up to 50 people a year in Japan.

The Blaine colony was located in a region of forests and farmland after officials attached radio trackers to three hornets that they had trapped earlier. One of those hornets led officials to the nest, which was about eight feet up in a tree.

Entomologists extracted a few hundred hornets with a vacuum and then sealed the rest of the nest shut on Oct. 24, Mr. Spichiger said at the news conference, held virtually on Tuesday. Officials later removed the section of the tree where the nest had been sealed and took it to a quarantine research center at Washington State University.

On Oct. 29, officials opened the nest to find most of the insects still alive. Including the hornets that were vacuumed up days before, officials said they removed about 500 hornets in various life stages from the nest, which was about 14 inches long and at least eight inches wide.




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Sven-Erik Spichiger holding a canister containing hornets removed from the nest in Blaine.Credit...Elaine Thompson/Agence France-Presse via Getty Images

Although Mr. Spichiger said officials removed many of the queens from the nest just in time, he said there were some that could have escaped and could form new colonies next year.

At least three queens were found in a nearby water bucket after the extraction, he said, adding that it was impossible for officials to be certain that they had caught all of the hornets or of how many more there could be.

“When you see all the relatively small nests able to pop out 200 queens, it does give one a little bit of pause, because eventually each of those queens could be a new nest,” he said.

If any queens escaped, they might not survive if they had not received adequate nutrition before leaving the nest. But if one was properly fed and had mated with a male, she could theoretically go off and pick a protected area to be insulated through the winter, helping to form new colonies in the spring.
 
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“It’s clear since we captured specimens last year and captured queens early on that a few of them did manage to establish nests in 2020,” he said.
There could still be nests out there.
Two Asian giant hornets vacuumed from the tree in Blaine.

Two Asian giant hornets vacuumed from the tree in Blaine.Credit...Elaine Thompson/Associated Press


Hoping to eventually eradicate the hornets, State Agriculture Department workers will continue trapping them until at least Thanksgiving.

However, officials will not track any queens they may capture because they are not likely to return to a nest for officials to eradicate. At this point in the season, officials’ best chance of locating another nest is if the hornets go on to attack a beehive, Mr. Spichiger said.

The discoveries from this nest have left officials unsure of how the hornets got to the Pacific Northwest in the first place. Mr. Spichiger said it was likely that a mated queen made its way to Washington through international trade. He also said it was possible that someone had smuggled the hornets into the United States to raise them as food. (They are sometimes eaten as snacks or used as an ingredient in alcoholic drinks.)

Even if there are no other hornets found in the area in the future, officials will continue to use traps for at least three more years to ensure that the area is free of the hornets.

“These are not going to hunt you down and murder you,” Mr. Spichiger said. But, “If you walk into a nest, your life is probably in danger.”
 
I think the terminology and nomenclature used in the article and all references to this insect are comical

Murder hornets ffs!

Slaughter phase!

Loads of people die from bee stings all over the world.

I mean you don’t want it, that’s for sure but they act like it’s an interstellar threat.
 
You can't call 'em giant a-hole hornets, maybe honeybee-killing hornet would be more appropriate...but, the ratings!!?!
 
It's no little thing, to have an invasive species establish itself, that kills honey bee hives in short order.

We depend on honey bees to pollinate a large percentage of our food crops.

Asian hornets are no big risk to people, directly. But they sure as hell are a risk to our agriculture, and thus our food production.
 
Well Burnham, they will have to work hard to kill just a fraction of the numbers of honeybees that neonecotinoids have.
 
Burnham said:
It's no little thing, to have an invasive species establish itself, that kills honey bee hives in short order.

We depend on honey bees to pollinate a large percentage of our food crops.

Asian hornets are no big risk to people, directly. But they sure as hell are a risk to our agriculture, and thus our food production.
Click to expand...
I hear Australia got overrun by poisonous frogs that are killing most of the fish and wildlife.
 
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