State wildlife officials expect to destroy a nest of the Asian giant hornets in the northwestern corner of Washington State this week, and say “there may still be more” nests of the so-called murder hornet in the area near the Canadian border. It was the second time within a year that a nest of the hornets, a threat to honeybees, was found in Whatcom County.
The Asian giant hornet is the largest species of hornet, with queens that can grow to two inches long. A raiding party of several dozen of the hornets can kill a hive of honeybees in a few hours. The hornets feed immature bees to their own young larvae.
Native to Asia, the murder hornet could become an additional threat to the U.S. honeybee population if it becomes established in the country. Honeybees and other insects play an important role in pollinating dozens of crops each year. Beekeepers report large losses of colonies each year due to parasites such as the Varroa mite, pesticides, disease and malnutrition.
The hornet nest, with an opening two or three inches wide, was found in the base of a tree in a rural area east of Blaine, Washington, about a quarter-mile from where a resident spotted a giant hornet on Aug. 11. Over the next few days, entomologists from the Washington State Agriculture Department (WSDA) trapped three of the hornets and put tracking devices on them. One of the tracking devices led a team of scientists from WSDA, USDA and the Oregon Agriculture Department to the nest.
“Lots of hornets coming in and out. Some appear to be foraging, others appear to be actually excavating the nest,” said Karla Salp, a WSDA spokeswoman, in a video report. It was still early in the reproductive cycle of the hornet so there was little risk of new queen hornets leaving the nest while authorities figure out how to capture the hornets and remove the nest.
“We have a chance here to eradicate this before it becomes established in the United States, which is very difficult to do with this type of animal,” said Salp.
There have been reports of the Asian giant hornet since 2019 in Washington State and Vancouver Island, British Columbia. Several of the hornets were seen on Vancouver Island in late summer and fall of 2019. A dead giant hornet was found in Washington in December 2020. The first captures of live hornets in Washington came in July 2020, and in late October, WSDA destroyed a nest near Blaine that contained nearly 200 hornets.
The new nest was about two miles from the location of the 2020 nest that was destroyed, reported Newsweek.
Two months ago, a dead Asian giant hornet was discovered in the Seattle suburb of Marysville, about 75 miles south of Blaine. DNA testing indicated the male hornet, possibly born in 2020, was unrelated to the giant hornets found near Blaine, said WSDA.