Posted on 08/27/2021 8:37:41 AM PDT by fireman15
First spotted in the U.S. in 2019, Asian giant hornets—you know, murder hornets—have become an ongoing problem.
As if you don’t already have enough to worry about, murder hornets are now an annual problem in the U.S.
The Washington State Department of Agriculture on Thursday announced that it located and eradicated the first nest of Asian giant hornets, better known by the much more catchy murder hornets, in the state this year. The nest contained some 1,500 hornets “in various stages of development,” WSDA said in a press release, and photos released by the department show many were in the pre-murder larval stage.
The discovery of the nest is good news in the sense that humans were able to murder the murder hornets before they could murder us or endangered bees. The bad news is, this is the third year in a row that murder hornets have been discovered in the state, where the homicidal insects were first spotted in 2019. The continual discovery of Asian giant hornets raises the specter that they could become an established invasive species in the U.S., which is why WSDA entomologists are encouraging the public to continue reporting any murder hornet they see.
“While we are glad to have found and eradicated this nest so early in the season, this detection proves how important public reporting continues to be,” Sven Spichiger, a WSDA managing entomologist, said in a statement. “We expect there are more nests out there and, like this one, we hope to find them before they can produce new queens. Your report may be the one that leads us to a nest.”
(Excerpt) Read more at gizmodo.com ...
I’m a bit more concerned with MS-13, inner city blacks, and Afghani refugees.
The yellow jackets probably moved South to get away from the murder hornets. Similar to NY people heading to FL.
Nightmare material
ASIAN murder hornets
They aren’t “murder” hornets; they are Asian giant hornets.
Murder hornet is a term coined by some over zealous journalist to incite worry and panic.
Those would be fun with .22 shot loads. Or a .410.
Murder vs Giant Asian:
They are responsible for 30-50 (human) deaths each year in Japan. Each individual hornet is innocent until proven guilty I guess.
This is obviously due to climate change. /s/
Interesting theory but it probably has more to do with the warmer and drier than normal summer we have been having.
This is the time of the year when yellow jackets start getting more aggressive. I was stung a little more than a week ago while standing in our front yard. I am a bit allergic so I still have an itchy welt that does not want to heal.
It wasn't hard to find the nest... it looked like a busy airport under our front deck with wasps arriving and departing in massive numbers. The next morning I emptied an entire can of black flag into the opening. It killed quite a few that came out to greet me but had no real effect on the activity.
So the next morning I sprayed them again and caved in the opening. By the next morning they had excavated a new opening and resumed operations. So the next morning before the sun came up I dug the entire nest up. I trained a bright light on the opening to distract them. I would spray to kill the ones coming out, wait a bit for them to disperse then take out a shovel full of dirt. Then spray some more to calm down the next wave of swarming wasps. Eventually I got to the main part of the nest which was the diameter of a basketball and about 6 inches deep. I chopped it into little pieces. For several days stragglers who had been out foraging and spent the night away from home during my assault kept buzzing around but the residual poison seems to have taken care of them
It is a miracle that I didn't get stung again. All I had was long sleeves and pants and a hat with flaps to cover my ears. But I tried to be careful and the light helped to attract them in a direction away from me.
Breathtaking! Although the article says that ‘some people eat them’. Really? The sight of those monstrosities would make me lose my appetite for sure!
They probably sound like motorized glider hobby planes.
“ They aren’t “murder” hornets; they are Asian giant hornets.
Murder hornet is a term coined by some over zealous journalist to incite worry and panic”
So true, and in Washington State worry and panic is treated as some kind of great virtue.
I just want to slap everyone upside the head here.
Are they ‘protected?’
Jail time to humans.
“Murder hornets” contains a verb, not an adjective.
People might scoff or laugh. But I'm dead serious.
Surely we could make them tasty by deep frying them in some batter for state fairs or maybe grinding them up into a powder that can be baked into some kind of pound cake.
I just saying, we need to turn the tables and become their predators. If we eat them, they won't be able to hurt us anymore.
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