WASHINGTON STATE OFFICIALS HUNT FOR COLONY OF ‘MURDER HORNETS’

Philip Bovenkamp knew he might have something unusual on his property near Blaine, Wash., when he spotted it recently — flashing by like a dragonfly but “bigger than anything that would come by here.” His suspicions only grew when he heard a low-pitched buzzing sound — first outside, and then again inside his shop, where he had gone to fetch a tool.

“By that time,” he said, “I was convinced I was dealing with a murder hornet.” And he was. Bovenkamp’s discovery last month that there were Asian giant hornets landing on a wasp nest in his shop touched off an effort this past week by the Washington State Department of Agriculture to find and destroy their colony before they can decimate honeybees that are critical to the region’s crops, including raspberries and blueberries.

“It may be a very daunting task to find the exact location,” Sven Spichiger, a department entomologist, said in an online news conference on Friday.

Asian giant hornets, which some researchers call murder hornets, rocketed to entomological notoriety last year after they were discovered for the first time in the United States, in Washington state, prompting officials to issue a pest alert and warn that the hornets pose a threat to honeybees.

At up to 2 inches long, Asian giant hornets are the world’s largest hornets, and they are notorious for using their powerful mandibles to attack and destroy honeybee hives in a matter of hours. With their potent stinger, they can also deliver agonizingly painful venom. In Japan, the hornets kill up to 50 people a year.

In Washington state, the search for the colony near Bovenkamp’s property, which is near the Canadian border, has taken on particular urgency because the hornets are about to enter their “slaughter phase,” Spichiger said. That’s when they attack beehives in force, removing and decapitating every bee inside and then harvesting the brood and pupae for food.

After Bovenkamp reported the hornet to the state Agriculture Department, Chris Looney, a state entomologist who went to the property to investigate, managed to catch an Asian giant hornet in a net — the first one caught alive in the United States, according to the department.

Department scientists then tried to glue a tracking device to the hornet, in hopes of following it back to its nest. But the glue didn’t dry fast enough, Spichiger said, and the tracking device slipped off just as they were about to release the hornet. The glue also stuck to the hornet’s wings, rendering it unable to fly, he said.

He said the department had peppered the area with 30 traps baited with orange juice and rice wine in an effort catch and tag another live hornet.

“We are supremely confident that, at least for the next couple of weeks, we’re probably going to snag one, if not more, of them,” Spichiger said. “And we’ll be able to give this another try.”