Citizen hornet catchers are heeding the call
Army of deadly insect hunters trying to stop invasion of insects
On her island property two hours south of the Canadian border city where a “murder hornet” was spotted last spring, Peggy Shashy is waiting with her homemade traps.
She hopes she never comes into contact with the insect that can grow to the same size as a small hummingbird and has a painful sting. But, like so many Canadians and Americans, she’s found that since the Asian giant hornet landed in North America, she can’t look away.
“I’m not afraid of coronavirus, but I’m really afraid of this hornet,” she said.
She goes out every week to check her traps.
“I’m hoping we don’t get them, because it will decimate the honeybee population,” said Shashy, a former veterinarian. “If they can find the nest, they can eradicate all of them.”
It’s August, which is the beginning of Asian giant hornet hunting season and the key time to catch the invasive creature that’s been spotted in British Columbia and Washington state, raising concerns the fearsome bug could proliferate and destroy honeybee populations.
Scientists working to track down the hornet are asking citizen hornet-watchers to be on the lookout. And enthusiasts such as Shashy are eager to heed the call.
Paul van Westendorp, B.C.’s provincial apiculturist, examines dozens of reports from the public every day, judging whether submitted pictures could be the Asian giant hornet that he so badly wants to eradicate in order to protect bees.
Most are not. He recalls one report from California, which turned out to be for a Jerusalem cricket — a striped bug that doesn’t even have wings to fly.
“It was just utterly impossible that this had anything to do with an Asian giant hornet, but here was this person who was very fearful of this bug at their front door,” van Westendorp said.
But he keeps reading the reports, day in, day out. They are the best hope van Westendorp and his counterparts at the
Ministry of Agriculture in Washington state have to locate, contain and eradicate the hornet before it proliferates.
It’s all easier said than done, since sightings of the hornet, even if it had established itself in B.C. and Washington, would be exceedingly rare.
“This is an apex predator — the easiest analogy to make is one with the polar bear in the Arctic,” van Westendorp said. “The chances that you’ll run into one are pretty low.”
That’s why scientists are relying on eyewitness reports from the public in order to locate, and eradicate the hornets. And it’s prime time to do so — they’re at their most aggressive in August and September, when they hunt honey bee larvae.
In B.C., van Westendorp has put out a call for members of the public to snap pictures of any insect they think might be the Asian giant hornet, along with the location of the sighting, which his team reviews.
“We like to use the public eye,” van Westerndorp said. “When they find something, they submit their findings. We can then respond to that and narrow our search.”
“It was last May — out of all the emails that came in continuously — one popped up one afternoon that, sure enough, was the Asian giant hornet that was found in Langley,” he said.
In Washington state, enlisting the help of the public has evolved into the formation of a volunteer hornet-watch army, more than 1,000 strong.
The department of agriculture made a call for “citizen scientists” to construct hornet traps out of pop bottles, rice wine and orange juice, then report on the contents of the traps each week for the period the Asian giant hornet is most active.
That’s how Shashy got involved, putting up traps with names such as “hornet hotel” and “the hornet who drank too much” around her property.
Mark Ainsworth, a dad and longtime conservationist in Snohomish County just north of Seattle, is also part of the “hornet watch” crew.
“I’ve always been kind of a joiner, so I signed up,” he said. He and his daughter caught their first two hornets Thursday — but they turned out to be a common local breed, rather than the Asian giant kind.
“I think it’s kind of visceral; people are terrified of this thing. I hear they have a particularly painful sting,” he said. “It’s kind of high-profile science that gets people’s attention.”
The first Asian giant hornet nest located in North America was tracked down by citizen scientists.
Beekeepers John and Moufida Holubeshen triangulated the various reports of Asian Giant Hornet sightings in their hometown of Nanaimo, B.C. — ultimately leading to the eradication of a hornet nest last fall. Van Westendorp remembered the Nanaimo find, and said that in the hunt for the Asian giant hornet, beekeepers play a special role.
“Beekeepers know that this insect is a predator of honeybee colonies. For that reason, beekeepers are quite vigilant and want to reduce the risk,” he said. “We certainly deal with beekeepers at a different level than the public at large.”
For the public, van Westendorp said, it’s best to look, photograph if possible, and then get away from the hornet before risking a painful sting.
“I’m not afraid of coronavirus, but I’m really afraid of this hornet.”
PEGGY SHASHY HORNET HUNTER