Expert hopes Island free of murder hornets
No sighting of invasive insect since Sept. 2019
VICTORIA — B.C.'s top apiculturist is hoping to declare Vancouver Island free of the Asian giant hornet in September, pending no new sightings of the so-called “murder hornets” over the summer.
There hasn't been a confirmed sighting of the unusually large hornet on the Island since September 2019, said Paul van Westendorp, provincial apiculturist with the Ministry of Agriculture. If two full seasons pass without a report of an invasive species, the area is generally considered safe from the pest, he said.
The province is focusing its attention this summer on the Fraser Valley, where five Asian giant hornets were found by the public in 2020, van Westendorp said. They're setting up traps — bottles filled with a sweet liquid that attracts the insect — along the U.S. border from White Rock to Aldergrove. On the Island, they'll rely on beekeepers and the public to report sightings of any unusually large hornets to bcinvasives.ca.
Van Westendorp said the epicentre for the invasive species appears to be in Washington state, where scientists recently confirmed a dead Asian giant hornet north of Seattle, the first one discovered in the U.S. or Canada this year.
The five-centimetre-long invasive insects, first found near the Canadian-U.S. border in December 2019, are native to Asia and pose a threat to honeybees and native hornet species. While they're not particularly aggressive toward humans, their sting is extremely painful and repeated stings can kill.