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Heavily protected crews worked to destroy the first so-called killer hornet nest discovered in the United States.
The state Department of Agriculture had spent weeks searching, 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 bees of which Farmers depend to pollinate crops.
Elaine Thompson / AP
Sven Spichiger, managing entomologist for the Washington State Department of Agriculture, shows a boat of Asian giant hornets taken from a nest in a tree behind him.
The nest in the town of Blaine, near the Canadian border, is the size of a basketball and contained 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’ 6-millimeter-long stingers from hurting workers, who also wore face shields because trapped hornets can spit painful poison into their eyes.
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The tree will be cut down to extract newborn hornets and find out if any queen has 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 likely 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.
Karla Salp / AP
An Asian giant hornet with a tracking device.
Elaine Thompson / AP
Wearing a protective suit, Washington State Department of Agriculture entomologist Chris Looney fills a tree cavity with carbon dioxide after sucking in a nest of giant Asian hornets from inside.
The real threat from the Asian giant hornets, which are 5 centimeters 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.
Elaine Thompson / AP
Washington State Department of Agriculture workers, dressed in protective suits and working in the pre-dawn darkness lit by red lamps, suck a nest of giant Asian hornets from a tree.
Elaine Thompson / AP
A Washington State Department of Agriculture worker holds two of the dozen Asian giant hornets sucked from a tree.
