The so-called stinging “murder hornets,” the world’s largest hornets, can grow to five centimetres in length and prey on native bee and wasp populations, consuming honeybee hives and threatening agriculture.

The hornets are not native to North America. They were first detected in the U.S. in 2019, when a hornet was reported in Washington’s Whatcom County, near the Canadian border, according to the WSDA.

This latest nest was uncovered in the base of a dead alder tree in Whatcom County and was eradicated on Wednesday.

“They did actually attempt to sting us this time,” said Sven Spichiger, the department’s managing entomologist, during a virtual news conference Thursday.

“We are all very happy to say that our hornet suits worked very well and no injuries were sustained. We responded to this by blocking off the second entrance, which stopped them from coming out,” he said.

In addition to the 113 worker hornets vacuumed out, staff netted another 67 other hornets in the area. The nest itself had nearly 1,500 hornets in various stages of development, the WSDA said in a statement.

Some of the live hornets were sent to USDA for research. The others will be destroyed, the agency said.

WSDA said it will continue to trap for Asian giant hornets through the end of November.

Once spotted and captured, hornets are fitted with a radio transmitter and released in the hope they can be followed back to the nest.

After a nest is confirmed to be in a tree by thermal imaging, the tree is wrapped in plastic while its trunk is hit with a piece of wood to get the hornets out so they can be vacuumed up and eradicated.

According to the Invasive Species Council of B.C., Asian giant hornet nests have yet to be found in mainland British Columbia — except for one nest Washington state officials found and destroyed directly over the border line at Blaine in Whatcom County last October.

That said, several dead Asian giant hornets were found in B.C.’s southern Fraser Valley in 2020, the council said. The lone nest seen on the Canadian side of the border was found and destroyed at Nanaimo, on Vancouver Island, in 2019.

— Reporting for Reuters by Alexandra Ulmer. Includes files from Glacier FarmMedia Network staff.

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The so-called stinging “murder hornets,” the world’s largest hornets, can grow to five centimetres in length and prey on native bee and wasp populations, consuming honeybee hives and threatening agriculture.

“Any time you get any organism that is not native to an area move in, the consequences are really immeasurable,” said Sven Spichiger, the department’s managing entomologist.

A day before the nest was located, Washington and Oregon state Department of Agriculture employees gathered in an open-air classroom just south of the British Columbia border to learn how to trap, track and eradicate the invasive species.

The employees donned protective suits, complete with black boots and blue gloves, and practised using telemetry systems to find the hornets, tag them and then destroy their nests.

Thousands of traps baited with orange juice or jam are hung in trees along likely hornet flight paths. Once spotted, the hornet must be tracked to its nest, so its queen and other hornets can be destroyed, ideally before reproducing.

When a hornet is captured, it’s fitted with a radio transmitter and released, in the hope it can be followed back to its nest.

Once a nest of Asian giant hornets is confirmed by thermal imaging to be in a tree, the tree is wrapped in plastic wrap to prevent escape while its trunk is hit with a piece of wood to get the hornets out so they can be vacuumed up and eradicated.

“My biggest fear for this year is that there will be lots of nests out in our county and we just don’t know where they are, that’s the biggest problem, is nests going undetected. So that’s why it’s so important for the public to continue telling us when they think they see one,” Looney said.

According to the Invasive Species Council of B.C., Asian giant hornet nests have yet to be found in mainland B.C. — except for one nest Washington state officials found and destroyed directly over the border line at Blaine last October.

That said, several dead Asian giant hornets were found in B.C.’s southern Fraser Valley in 2020, the council said. The lone nest seen on the Canadian side of the border was found and destroyed at Nanaimo, on Vancouver Island, in 2019.

The Washington state ag department today maintains a map of Asian giant hornet sightings in both the U.S. and Canada.

— Reporting for Reuters by Tim Exton. Includes files from Glacier FarmMedia Network staff.

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The stinging hornet, whose queens can grow as large as 2-1/2 inches in length, could potentially pose a threat to humans and the beekeeping industry, Washington state agriculture officials said Friday.

Joel Nielsen, who lives near Custer, Wash., about 16 km from the Canada-U.S. border, spotted the dead insect while walking on a roadway on Wednesday, took a photograph of it and reported the sighting to agriculture officials using an online form.

Sven-Erik Spichiger, managing entomologist at the Washington state Department of Agriculture, said state and federal labs confirmed Friday that the Custer specimen was an Asian giant hornet.

Nielsen’s sighting, the third in that part of the state, comes just days after B.C. provincial officials confirmed Canada’s first finding of 2020, near Langley, in its furthest appearance inland so far.

According to local media, a resident stepped on a hornet May 15 and reported the dead pest to provincial officials, who identified it as an Asian giant.

“Preliminary results indicate that this is a queen, but that is going to be unofficial and pending further investigation at the lab in D.C. And what that means is more than likely a nest was able to produce breeding queens and make it through the winter,” Spichiger told reporters at a virtual news conference.

Spichiger called the finding a victory in the hoped-for eradication of the species.

“When you remove a queen, you’re basically killing the nest, especially this time of year. So we can kind of count this as a victory,” he said. “That makes us all very happy here.”

Spichiger warned, though, that the discovery could indicate more hornets in the area. If worker hornets start showing up later in the year in Department of Agriculture traps, that will indicate colonies are established, he said.

British Columbia’s agriculture ministry also wants people in the region who may have seen Asian giant hornets to report sightings to the Invasive Species Council of B.C., with photos if possible.

The so-called “murder hornet” is widely distributed in eastern Asia, from the sub-tropics of southern China to temperate zones of the Korean peninsula and northern Japan, B.C. officials said. It’s not known how it got to the West Coast but container ships have been suggested as the most likely mode of transport.

The Asian giant hornet made its first appearance in Canada last August when three were found at Nanaimo on Vancouver Island. Another Asian giant was found in November on the B.C. mainland, at White Rock.

The U.S. in December confirmed its first finding by a homeowner in Blaine, Wash., just south of White Rock.

The Asian giant, a predator of honeybees and other large insects, establishes ground nests and forages as far as eight km from its nest, B.C. officials said in September. They noted the hornets are dormant, thus unlikely to be seen, in fall and winter.

The hornets, which have noticeably large orange heads and black eyes, are able to feed on honeybees and destroy beehives in a short time period.

The B.C. ag ministry has noted several large insects common to the region — such as yellow jackets, bald faced hornets, elm sawflies and horntail wasps — could be mistaken for Asian giant hornets.

The giant hornets do not generally target people, pets or large livestock, but can attack when threatened or if their nest is disturbed.

— Reporting for Reuters by Jane Ross; writing by Diane Craft. Includes files from Glacier FarmMedia Network staff.

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The stinging Vespa mandarinia can grow as large as 2-1/2 inches (6.35 cm) in length and is native to Southeast Asia, China and Taiwan.

According to British Columbia’s agriculture ministry, a nest was found and destroyed last August at Nanaimo on Vancouver Island, and a single specimen of the hornet was found in November on the B.C. mainland, at White Rock.

On the U.S. side of the border, individual specimens were found in December near Blaine, Wash., just south of White Rock, according to Sven-Erik Spichiger, managing entomologist at the Washington state agriculture department.

Those findings indicate a “probability” that nesting hornets are overwintering in the area, the province said in March, noting wooded habitat offers suitable nesting grounds.

The “murder hornet” presents a danger to agriculture and the apiary industry, Spichiger said, because the insect is known to attack honeybees, with a few of the hornets capable of wiping out an entire hive in hours.

“The hornets enter a ‘slaughter phase’ where they kill bees by decapitating them. They then defend the hive as their own, taking the brood to feed their own young,” according to the Washington state department of agriculture website.

“Pollination is a huge part of agriculture and the agricultural systems we have here in the United States. And so if this were to become well-established and then start spreading, it could be pretty catastrophic,” Spichiger said.

Also. if provoked, “an Asian giant hornet can sting you multiple times and deliver larger doses of venom just because of the size of them. The venom itself is fairly toxic and creates localized necrosis around the wound so you’ll see melting flesh around the wound,” he told Reuters.

“What we’re told from the literature is that most people can survive one or two stings,” he said. “But if you sustain multiple stings, the necrosis and the venom will actually start getting into your bloodstream and will start working on your organs. And multiple stings could literally be fatal.”

Scientists don’t know for sure how the murder hornet made its way to the region. The most likely scenario is that it arrived on a container ship. Intentional transport of the bug into the United States would violate federal law.

Following the discovery of the first hornet, a web page set up by Washington state agriculture officials to report additional sightings of the insect has received several hundred reports, Spichiger said.

British Columbia’s agriculture ministry also wants people in the region who may have seen Asian giant hornets to report sightings to the Invasive Species Council of B.C., with photos if possible.

The ministry noted several large insects common to the region — such as yellow jackets, bald faced hornets, elm sawflies and horntail wasps — could be mistaken for Asian giant hornets.

While Asian giant hornets do not generally target people, pets or large livestock, they can attack when threatened or if their nest is disturbed.

“We really don’t want any private citizen trying to mess with an Asian giant hornet nest. Typical beekeeping attire will simply not protect you. The stinger on this insect is six millimeters long and will go readily through most clothes,” Spichiger said.

— Reporting for Reuters by Omar Younis; writing by Dan Whitcomb. Includes files from Glacier FarmMedia Network staff.

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