The world’s largest hornet, a murderer with an appetite for Honey Bees, has been found in Washington state. This hornet is called a Murder Hornet.
Murder Hornets were also known as Asian giant hornets originated from Asia. They kill up to 50 people each year in Asia. Entomologists are still trying to figure out how they got here.
These deadly animals are being found all over. The first sighting was in Washington near Canada’s border in 2019. A beekeeper was out taking care of his bees when he found a bunch of carcasses littering the ground. When he looked inside the hive, a bunch more carcasses were found with their heads ripped off.
To track these murder hornets and find their nest, a group of Entomologists captured a few and glued on a tracker, but it fell off and the glue gummed up their wings. They tried tying it on with dental floss, but that did not work either. After that, they used glue and floss and it worked! It led them to a tree on private property about 10 minutes down the road. They had found it.
The United States is rushing to see if there are any more hives so that we can get rid of them as fast as possible. Chris Looney, an entomologist at the Washington State Department of Agriculture said, “This is our window to keep it from establishing, If we can’t do it in the next couple of years, it probably can’t be done.”
Another finding was one early, cold December morning when Jeff Kornelis walked out onto his porch and laying there was the biggest hornet he had ever seen laying dead right there in front of him.
Mr. Kornelis thought that it could be an Asian giant hornet, even though it did not seem reasonable given his location. He carefully picked it up and brought it inside to examine it.
Sure enough, it was an Asian giant hornet. Beyond the size, all Asian giant hornets have a distinct look. With a cartoonishly evil looking face, wings like a miniature dragonfly, eyes like a spider’s, and fierce stripes that extend down its back like an Orange and Black Zebra.
He then contacted the state and they affirmed that it was indeed a Murder Hornet. They had already found its nest. This was the end for now. We just need to cross our fingers that there are no more Murder Hornets for us to find.
