Team removes giant hornets from nest site
SPOKANE, Wash. — Scientists removed 98 “murder hornets” from a nest discovered near the Canadian border in Washington state over the weekend, including 13 that were captured live in a net, the state Department of Agriculture said Monday.
The 85 other Asian giant hornets were vacuumed into a special container when the first nest discovered on U. S. soil was eradicated on Saturday, the agency said.
“The eradication went very smoothly,” managing entomologist Sven Spichiger said in a statement. “This is only the start of our work to hopefully prevent the Asian giant hornet from gaining a foothold in the Pacific Northwest.
“We suspect there may be more nests in Whatcom County,” Spichiger said.
Saturday’s operation began at about 5: 30 a. m. with the team donning protective suits and setting up scaffolding around the tree so they could reach the opening of the nest, which was about 10 feet high. The team stuffed dense foam padding into a crevice above and below the nest entrance and wrapped the tree with cellophane, leaving just a single opening. They inserted a vacuum hose to remove the hornets from the nest. The team pumped carbon dioxide into the tree to kill or anesthetize any remaining hornets.
WSDA will continue setting traps through at least November in hopes of catching any more Asian giant hornets still in Whatcom County.
The first confirmed detection of an Asian giant hornet in Washington was made in December 2019 and the first hornet was trapped in July of this year. An invasive pest not native to the U. S., the hornets are the world’s largest and a predator of honey bees and other insects.
The invasive insect is normally found in China, Japan, Thailand, South Korea, Vietnam and other Asian countries. Washington state and the Canadian province of British Columbia are the only places the hornets have been found on the continent.