US crews suck ‘killer hornets’ from Washington nest

Heavily protected teams in Washington state worked Saturday to destroy the first nest of so-called killer hornets discovered in the United States.

The state Department of Agriculture had spent weeks searching for, trapping and flossing to tie tracking devices to Asian giant hornets, which can cause painful stings to people and spit venom, but are the biggest threat to the bees they depend on. farmers to pollinate crops.

The nest in the town of Blaine, near the Canadian border, is the size of a basketball and contains between 100 and 200 hornets, according to scientists who announced the find Friday.

Teams wearing thick protective suits sucked invading insects from a tree cavity into large containers on Saturday. The suits prevent the hornets’ 6mm long stingers from hurting workers, who were also wearing face shields because trapped hornets can spit painful poison into their eyes.

The tree will now be cut down to extract newborn hornets and find out if any queens have already left the hive, the scientists said. Authorities suspect there may be more nests in the area and will continue to search.

Despite their moniker and the hype that has raised fears in an already bleak year, the world’s largest hornets kill at most a few dozen people a year in Asian countries, and experts say that is probably far less. Meanwhile, hornets, wasps and bees typically found in the United States kill an average of 62 people a year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

The real threat from the Asian giant hornets, which are 5 cm long, is their devastating attacks on bees, which are already beset by problems like mites, disease, pesticides and food loss.

The invasive insect is normally found in China, Japan, Thailand, South Korea, Vietnam, and other Asian countries. The state of Washington and the Canadian province of British Columbia are the only places where hornets have been found on the continent.

The nest was found after the state Department of Agriculture caught some wasps this week and flossed to connect radio trackers to some of them.

– AP