Asian giant hornets nest destroyed at the border

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

The nest was located in the base of a dead alder tree in rural Whatcom County, about three kilometers from a nest that the Washington state Department of Agriculture eradicated last October and a quarter mile from the Canadian border.

The Asian giant hornets are sometimes called murder hornets because they prey on other bees.

Asian giant hornets are the world’s largest hornet and are not native to North America. They can conduct mass attacks on honey bees, destroying the hive in a matter of hours.

The five-centimeter-long invasive insects are not particularly aggressive toward humans, but their sting is extremely painful and repeated stings (though rare) can kill.

Workers vacuumed up 113 worker hornets from the nest. Removing the wood from the tree revealed the hornets had excavated the interior of the tree to make room for the nest, which consisted of nine layers of comb.

The portion of the tree with the nest was transported to Washington State University in Bellingham for further analysis. The nest itself had nearly 1,500 hornets in various stages of development.

“This detection proves how important public reporting continues to be,” said Sven Spichiger, WSDA managing entomologist.

“We expect there are more nests out there and, like this one, we hope to find them before they can produce new queens.”