Homicidal hornets or ‘hype’
Honeybees should be worried about ‘murder hornets’ – but not humans
Insect experts say people should calm down about the big bug with the nickname “murder hornet” – unless you are a beekeeper or a honeybee. The Asian giant hornets found in Washington state that grabbed headlines aren’t big killers of humans, although it does happen on rare occasions. But the world’s largest hornets do decapitate entire hives of honeybees, and those crucial food pollinators are already in big trouble.
Numerous bug experts said that what they call hornet “hype” reminds them of the 1970s public scare when Africanised honeybees, nicknamed “killer bees”, started moving north from South America.
While these more aggressive bees did make it up to Texas and the Southwest, they didn’t live up to the horror-movie moniker. However, they also kill people in rare situations.
This time, it’s hornets with the homicidal nickname, which bug experts want to ditch.
“They are not ‘murder hornets’. They are just hornets,” said Washington Agriculture Department entomologist Chris Looney, who is working on the state’s search for these large hornets.
The facts are, experts said, two dead hornets were found in Washington last December, a lone Canadian live nest was found and wiped out last September and no live hornets have yet been seen this year.
“The number of people who are stung and have to seek medical attention is incredibly small,” Looney said. While its nickname exaggerates the human health threat, experts said this hornet is especially big – 5cm long – so it does carry more and stronger toxin.
“It’s a really nasty sting for humans,” said University of Georgia bee expert Keith Delaplane. “It’s like the Africanised bee . . . A dozen [stings], you are okay; 100, not so much.”
University of Illinois entomologist May Berenbaum said of the worry: “People are afraid of the wrong thing. The scariest insects out there are mosquitoes. People don’t think twice about them. If anyone’s a murder insect, it would be a mosquito.”
Mosquitoes are responsible for millions of yearly deaths worldwide from malaria, dengue fever and other diseases, according to the World Health Organisation. Asian giant hornets at most kill a few dozen people a year and some experts said it’s probably far less.
Hornet, wasp and bee stings kill on average 62 people a year in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In Japan, Korea and China, “people have co-existed with this hornet for thousands of years,” said Doug Yanega, senior scientist at the University of California Riverside Entomology Research Museum.
“This is 99 per cent media hype and frankly I’m getting tired of it,” said University of Delaware entomologist Doug Tallamy. “Murder hornet? Please.”
Retired University of Montana bee expert Jerry Bromenshenk said in an email, “One nest, one individual hornet, hopefully, does not make an invasion. . . . Do we want this hornet – surely not. But the media hype is turbo charged.”
The number of US honeybees has been dropping for years, with the winter of 2018-19 one of the worst on record. That’s because of problems such as mites, diseases, pesticides and loss of food.
The new hornets would be different. If they get into a hive, they tear the heads off worker bees and the hive pretty much dies. Asian honeybees have defences – they start buzzing, raising the temperature and cook the invading hornet to death – but honeybees in America don’t.
Yet even for bees, the invasive hornets are far down on the list of real threats, not as big a worry as the parasitic “zombie fly” because more of those have been seen in several states, Berenbaum said.
For people, the hornets are scary because the world is already frightened by coronavirus and our innate fight-or-flight mechanisms are activated, said risk expert David Ropeik, author of How Risky Is It, Really?. “This year is unbelievable in a horrible, horrible way. Why shouldn’t there be murder hornets?” Berenbaum said.