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'Murder Hornets' (Asian Giant Hornets)

Confirmed in Washington.

The world's largest species of hornet invaded Washington state in December.

Now, seven months later, state officials have finally managed to catch one of the "murder hornets" — but they have less than two months to catch the rest before mating season begins and the species has a chance to grow.

The Washington State Department of Agriculture announced on Friday that it captured its first Asian giant hornet on July 14 in a bottle trap near Birch Bay in Whatcom County. A lab confirmed the hornet as part of the invasive species on July 29.

This was the first time the state found a murder hornet in a trap, rather than in the environment, a WSDA press release said. There have been five prior confirmed sightings of the hornet in the state. Sven Spichiger, managing entomologist for the state department, said the finding is "encouraging" because they now know the traps work.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/murder...than-two-months-to-find-and-destroy-the-rest/
 
This 2013 Chinese news article describes the problem these hornets caused in Shaanxi province ...
Death toll from terrifying giant hornets rises to 41, over 1,600 injured

giant-hornets.jpg

The death toll from a plague of giant, highly-aggressive hornets sweeping through Shaanxi province has risen to 41, with over 1,600 people injured, Shanghai Daily reports.

As you can see in the photo above, these hornets/wasps are big. Asian giant hornets (vespa mandarinia) are on average 5.5 cm (2.2 inches) long, or about the width of an iPhone 3G.

Though hornet attacks are a fact of life in Shaanxi, this year the insects have been especially prevalent, scientists suggest the greater numbers may be caused by increasing temperatures brought on by climate change.

The hornets, which can reach speeds of up to 40 kilometres per hour (25 mph), are also extremely aggressive. One man described being chased for 200 metres and stung repeatedly for over three minutes.

"The more you run, the more they want to chase you," said another victim, whose kidneys were ravaged by the venom. When he was admitted to the hospital, his urine was the color of soy sauce, according to local reports.

Authorities in Shaanxi have established a team of medical experts to offer support to victims. Firefighters have also been equipped with pesticides and protective clothing to tackle the insects.
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SALVAGED FROM THE WAYBACK MACHINE:
http://shanghaiist.com/2013/10/03/d...ng_giant_hornets_rises_to_41_1600_injured.php
 
Tag, Trace, Terminate.

The race is on to keep Asian giant hornets from spreading in the Pacific Northwest.

Fifteen hornets — including 11 dead ones — have turned up in Washington state since 2019, as well as others in British Columbia, Canada. “We’re pretty sure there’s at least one nest” somewhere near Birch Bay along the Washington coast, says Karla Salp, a spokesperson for the Washington State Department of Agriculture in Olympia.

Efforts are under way to attach a radio tag to a live hornet and track it back to a nest. In an Oct. 2 news conference, department officials described catching their first live giant hornet just east of Birch Bay. The team glued a tiny transmitter to its abdomen. “Unfortunately the glue did not dry fast enough,” entomologist Sven Spichiger said. The tag fell off and glue got on the hornet’s wings, ruining its ability to fly.

The department is using live traps and “sentinel hives” — honeybee hives with a grate that allows bees to pass through but stops the larger hornets — to attract more hornets. The goal is to find and destroy any nests, ...

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/asian-giant-murder-hornets-new-map-habitat-united-states
 
Nuke the nest from orbit!

Scientists have discovered the first nest of so-called murder hornets in the United States and plan to wipe it out on Saturday to protect native honeybees, officials in Washington state said.

After weeks of searching, the agency said it found the nest of Asian giant hornets in Blaine, a city north of Seattle near the Canadian border. Bad weather delayed plans to destroy the nest on Friday.

The world’s largest hornet at two inches long, the invasive insects can decimate entire hives of honeybees and deliver painful stings to people.

Farmers in the northwestern US depend on those honeybees to pollinate many crops, including raspberries and blueberries. ...

https://www.irishexaminer.com/world/arid-40070285.html
 
Googled Murder Hornet vs Mantis, there are many vids, in at least one the Mantis comes out on top, this arrestingly titled vid also came up:


I must say the Mantis/Spider confrontation did not go the way I expected. It was a curious experience attempting ascertain what was going through whatever mind the Mantis has.
 
Unless the locals we're warned, I'd imagine we might see a few Roswell-style reports coming out of this.
 
Nest included 200 queens!

When scientists in Washington state destroyed the first nest of so-called murder hornets found in the US, they discovered about 500 live specimens in various stages of development, officials said Tuesday.

Among them were nearly 200 queens that had the potential to start their own nests, said Sven-Erik Spichiger, an entomologist leading the fight to kill the hornets.

“We got there just in the nick of time,” he said.

Still, that didn’t end the threat from the giant insects that can deliver painful, though rarely deadly, stings to people and wipe out entire hives of honeybees.

Scientists think other nests already exist and say it’s impossible to know if any queens escaped before the first nest was destroyed. ...

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/nov/10/murder-hornet-nest-queens-washington
 
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I've just sought out this thread to reassure myself that I didn't spot a "murder hornet" today.

For the record, this is the bastard I saw on my car's windscreen earlier:
IMG_20201122_125824.jpg


Much larger than a typical British wasp (I reckon a good 35-40mm), and its back end was pulsating in a rather unpleasant way. My first thought was "hornet", but now I've calmed down a bit (and honestly, regular-sized wasps on their own don't scare me), I think it's a queen wasp of the common-or-garden variety. And anyway, it seemed pretty lethargic in the the cool of the day.

So what do you all think? Big wasp, or winged death?
 
Rumors of a ‘murder hornet’ apocalypse may have been exaggerated
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/murder-hornet-apocalypse-rumors-exaggerated

The invasion is not as apocalyptic as some headlines have suggested. Not only is this not the first big hornet to invade the United States, the predatory insects hunt for honeybees, not people. And the hornets are not exactly taking over. Scientists have mounted an extensive effort to eradicate them — officials in Washington found and destroyed their first nest in October — and a map released this year suggests that swaths of challenging habitat might make it hard for the hornets to sweep across America.
 
They're here (or a related species is)!

AN ASIAN HORNET has been identified in the wild in Ireland for the first time.

The Asian hornet – which is in the same family as the Asian giant hornet or “murder hornet”, but is a different species – was found in a private dwelling in the north of Dublin.The hornet was found “alive but dying” and was photographed by the owner of the home, who sent the images to the National Biodiversity Data Centre. There is currently no indication of a nest in the area where the hornet was found. The hornet’s species – Asian hornet, or vespa velutina – was verified by the National Museum of Ireland.

Authorities are putting in place additional surveillance to watch for any further presence of Asian hornets, but say that while the finding of the first specimen is concerning, it should not cause alarm. In a statement, the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage said that it does not yet know how the hornet arrived in Ireland.

“The circumstances of how the specimen arrived in the country are not known. There are many possible pathways of introduction particularly for small mobile invasive species in urban areas with extensive regional, national and international connectivity,” the department said. “However, given current weather patterns it seems less likely to have come from an established nest,” it said.

The National Parks and Wildlife Service at the housing department is working with the Department of Agriculture, Food and Marine to monitor the situation and establish contingency measures.


https://www.thejournal.ie/asian-hornet-found-dublin-ireland-5431326-May2021/
 

Dead ‘murder hornet’ near Seattle is first found in US this year​

Entomologists say it’s first confirmed report from Snohomish county and seems to be unrelated to 2019 and 2020 discoveries
Asian giant hornet north of Seattle, the first so-called murder hornet found in the country this year, federal and state investigators said Wednesday.
Entomologists from the state and US Agriculture departments said it’s the first confirmed report from Snohomish county, north of Seattle, and appears to be unrelated to the 2019 and 2020 findings of the hornets in Canada and Whatcom county, along the Canadian border, that gained widespread
Click to expand...

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jun/16/seattle-murder-hornet-us-2021
 
Nest found in Guernsey.

The discovery of an Asian hornet nest in Guernsey demonstrates "the important role played by the public in controlling this invasive species".

The Asian Hornet Team said the nest was found inside a bird box that had fallen out of a tree in a garden off Rue de L’Ecole, Vale. It was 4in (10cm) in diameter and contained a queen and 17 worker hornets, which were looking after 82 eggs, larvae and pupae.

"It was fortunate the nest was found and reported to us urgently," said Francis Russell, project co-ordinator. "We know that when confined in a small space the workers and the queen will leave the primary nest to construct a larger secondary nest – typically in the tree tops nearby."

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cw94ekz3exyo
 
Jersey overrun by Asian hornet queens.

A record number of Asian hornet queens have been caught in Jersey this year.

The island captured 101 spring queens in traps across the island in 2021, compared to 42 in 2020. It is the highest figure Jersey has seen since the hornet arrived in the island in August 2016.

Alastair Christie, Asian hornet coordinator, believes the increase is partly down to improved methods of tracking and capturing the insect in Jersey. Mr Christie said while this year's figures were "a little alarming", organisers and members of the public were "better at catching them than ever before."

He said the island had also been sharing their skills with places like the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-jersey-58281111
 
Bigphoot2 said:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jun/16/seattle-murder-hornet-us-2021
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Now they found a live one and a nest.

The United States' first "murder hornet" nest of 2021 was found in northern Washington Thursday, about a week after the first sighting of the insect was reported.

The nest was found near Blaine, Washington, near the Canadian border and about a quarter mile east of where the first hornet was spotted August 11, the Washington State Department of Agriculture (WSDA) said in a press release.

Between August 11 and August 17, WSDA staff tagged three of the murder hornets—also called Asian giant hornets—with trackers, as was done to locate a nest in October 2020.

https://www.newsweek.com/first-murder-hornet-nest-2021-found-northern-washington-1621802
 
Nuked from orbit!

Officials in Washington state said they had destroyed the first Asian giant hornet nest of the season, which was located near the town of Blaine along the Canadian border.

The Washington state Department of Agriculture said it eradicated the nest on Wednesday.

The nest was located in the base of a dead alder tree in rural Whatcom County, about two miles from a nest the agency eradicated last October and about one-quarter mile from where a resident reported a live sighting of an Asian giant hornet on August 11.
The site is about one-quarter mile from the Canadian border.

https://www.irishexaminer.com/world/arid-40367492.html
 
More sightings on Guernsey.

A sighting of two Asian hornets in Guernsey has sparked a search for their nest.

Guernsey's Asian Hornet Team hopes traps will allow them to track the hornets to a nest after sightings in a garden on Le Petit Axce in the Vale. The invasive species comes to the Channel Islands from France in spring, posing a threat to local biodiversity. Most nests are found within 500m (547 yds) of where hornets are seen foraging said the team on Facebook.

Francis Russell from the team said he was "confident" the nest would be found after the sightings on 28 and 29 August.

"It is enough to know that there is a nest not too far away," he said.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-guernsey-58422425
 
Never mind 'Murder Hornets,' those smaller than normal waspies- you know, the ones that pester you when your outside trying to eat or drink something, yes - those ones. Was watching one of these yesterday attacking a bee!
It tried to kill the bee several times and failed ~ because I move my foot to try and shift it away from the bee.
After a bit of research, these small wasps are nasty in the first degree, because their aim is to attack the bee and bite it in half, then fly off back to their lair to feed to their grubs! Nasty. . . really nasty.
 
Eeek! Nest found in a residential area.

A large Asian hornet nest in Guernsey has been removed from a tree in a residential area after a week-long search.

The nest in St Sampsons was the first to be found in a built-up area, the States of Guernsey's Asian Hornet team said.

It was around 10m (33ft) up in a sweet chestnut tree in Clos Des Sablons.

The nest was found with the help of people reporting sightings and tracking returning worker hornets.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-guernsey-58584924
 
The Hornet conquest of the Channel Isles continues.

The first Asian hornet nest ever found on Herm has been removed.

The Asian Hornet Team said the "medium-sized" nest was treated and removed on Friday from a bank of brambles just inland from Belvoir beach. The team had been investigating after reports of hornets in a number of locations around the island.

Francis Russell, project coordinator for the Asian Hornet Strategy said they were grateful to everyone who had contacted them with information.

He said: "Pinpointing a nest is always challenging but this one was found relatively quickly by tracking hornets returning from two different locations back to their single nest."

Asian hornets are an invasive species which first arrived in Guernsey in 2017. They cause significant harm to biodiversity as predators of native insect populations, such as honey bees. Mr Russell said in previous years on Guernsey, active nests had been found up until the end of October so there was still time to find more.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-guernsey-58826367
 
Asian hornet spotted near Ascot, Berkshire.

"An Asian hornet has been spotted in Berkshire, the first confirmed sighting of the invasive species in the UK since September last year.

The hornet, which poses a risk to honey bees, was spotted in Ascot, according to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra).

Identification of the insect, which is smaller than the European hornet, was confirmed by the National Bee Unit.

Beekeepers and members of the public are urged to report further sightings."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-berkshire-58841878
 
Nosmo King said:
Asian hornet spotted near Ascot, Berkshire.

"An Asian hornet has been spotted in Berkshire, the first confirmed sighting of the invasive species in the UK since September last year.

The hornet, which poses a risk to honey bees, was spotted in Ascot, according to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra).

Identification of the insect, which is smaller than the European hornet, was confirmed by the National Bee Unit.

Beekeepers and members of the public are urged to report further sightings."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-berkshire-58841878
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I came across two wasps just last week in a fight-to-the-death. Stings out and locked in battle.
Just wondered if it is known that one of our 'normal' wasps could or would be able to kill the much larger wasp ~ as this one was, didn't have time to identify it fully at the time.
Anyway, big-foot got them!
 
Sid said:
I came across two wasps just last week in a fight-to-the-death. Stings out and locked in battle.
Just wondered if it is known that one of our 'normal' wasps could or would be able to kill the much larger wasp ~ as this one was, didn't have time to identify it fully at the time.
Anyway, big-foot got them!
Click to expand...
Where was this? you might want to report it if you suspect it could have been an Asian hornet
 
Nosmo King said:
Asian hornet spotted near Ascot, Berkshire.

"An Asian hornet has been spotted in Berkshire, the first confirmed sighting of the invasive species in the UK since September last year.

The hornet, which poses a risk to honey bees, was spotted in Ascot, according to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra).

Identification of the insect, which is smaller than the European hornet, was confirmed by the National Bee Unit.

Beekeepers and members of the public are urged to report further sightings."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-berkshire-58841878
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OMG! I'd better warn my Mum!
 
Nosmo King said:
Where was this? you might want to report it if you suspect it could have been an Asian hornet
Click to expand...
Yes, I thought already about that, but as I didn't have time to actually identify it accurately enough, I didn't think it would be to helpful.
Point is, if it was an extra large queen wasp, then why would it be in a fight with a 'normal' wasp. If it was an Asian wasp the it seemed at the time slightly smaller than they are supposed to be - this one was roughly about 1 1/4"+ long.
The place where I've definitely seen an Asian wasp was by the weir in Tewksbury on a day out last year, and it was sitting on the trees bark it measured about 1 1/2"+ long.
 
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Wasps will kill other wasps. They are very territorial, so if it meets a wasp that’s not from its nest then it gets nasty. i had a (European) hornet’s nest in my roof a couple of years ago and they were merrily bringing back wasps to their nest as food so it’s vicious out there. These uk hornets were ginormous so i am not sure i want to meet an asian one.
 
JaneD said:
Wasps will kill other wasps. They are very territorial, so if it meets a wasp that’s not from its nest then it gets nasty. i had a (European) hornet’s nest in my roof a couple of years ago and they were merrily bringing back wasps to their nest as food so it’s vicious out there. These uk hornets were ginormous so i am not sure i want to meet an asian one.
Click to expand...
My Mum had a hornet nest in under the eaves of her bungalow a few years back.
Specialist came and took them away.
Then she had a load living under the floor in the conservatory.
Then she had some large wasps living in a small green tool shed in the back garden.
It seems to be never-ending.
 
Mythopoeika said:
My Mum had a hornet nest in under the eaves of her bungalow a few years back.
Specialist came and took them away.
Then she had a load living under the floor in the conservatory.
Then she had some large wasps living in a small green tool shed in the back garden.
It seems to be never-ending.
Click to expand...
I wrestled with my vegetarian conscience about the hornet’s nest but eventually i got it destroyed. I felt bad, but the chap said they could chew through the ceiling and you could find a nest full of very cross hornets on the floor if you were unlucky. Wasp nests get left alone. i see them as sort of natural burglar deterrents.
 
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