The killer Vespa also arrived in Italy: in flight it reaches speeds of up to 40 kilometers per hour, kills tens of thousands of bees and can even seriously injure humans.

There is a new assassin bug among the hymenoptera. In the past few hours, dozens of articles have been published online about velutin wasp that in several regions of north-central Italy it is systematically killing bees. in Tuscany, Piedmont, Liguria, Emiliaand also Veneto, the velutin wasp, also known as the Asian hornet or the yellow-legged hornet, is doing considerable damage by conquering new spaces and territories to the detriment of honey bees. This voracious sui generis species has arrived in Europe since 2004, spreading mainly in France and then expanding its range of action around 2012 in Liguria. This extra large hymenopteran, which can measure more than 3 centimeters, loves to kill hives or attack pollen-filled bees in flight and then gut them.

According to entomologist Enzo Moretto, the advance of the Vespa Vespa will have a long life. “It is not easy to stop insects of this type But I believe that combining efforts and resources, and I am not only talking about the scarce in the beekeeping sector in great difficulty, we can still stop their action. How? For example, using technology, “the entomologist explained to republic. In short, the traps used to intercept and kill queens by slowing down colonies are not enough, you have to go one step further. As with apps to track human movements, there are chips to insert into these hornets to then track and identify their nests and remove them. Moretto recalls that experiments are being carried out with mosquitoes that could slow down wasp vetulin, but also the viruses and bacteria found in nature, sooner or later, will return to the normal situation, despite the difficulties faced by a sector that is already in crisis, like beekeeping.

The entomologist, among other things, remembers that there is even “hornet hunters“They go in search of nests of these dangerous insects also for man and then sell them in food markets (the usual wet market where coronaviruses have surely multiplied and reproduced) even at “120 euros each”. Finally, even in the United States, the problem of giant hornets has become a topic of discussion between entomologists and industry authorities. Already because it is since last winter that the presence of these insects began to register, probably reaching the west coast of the USA. USA From Japan. One fact: in the land of the Rising Sun, these hornets they even fly at a speed of 40 kilometers per hour, in addition to kill tens of thousands of bees, but also the common wasps, resulted in the death of one fifty people. The same number recorded in China with several hundred wounded. The latter have permanent liver and heart damage. The aggression of this insect by bees, wasps and humans is countered in the state of Washington through an application where reports of citizens who find themselves in spite of contact with murderous hornets arrive.