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Heavily protected teams worked in Washington state on Saturday to destroy the first nest of so-called killer hornets discovered in the United States.
The state department of agriculture spent weeks searching for, trapping and flossing to tie tracking devices to Asian giant hornets, which can cause painful stings and spit venom, but are the biggest threat to honey bees. Farmers depend to pollinate crops.
The nest found in the town of Blaine, near the Canadian border, was the size of a basketball and contained between 100 and 200 hornets, according to scientists who announced the find Friday.
On Saturday, crews in thick protective suits sucked the invading insects from a tree cavity into large containers. The suits stopped the 6mm stingers from the hornets damaging the workers, who also wore face shields because the trapped hornets were capable of spitting out a painful poison.
The tree will be cut down to extract newborn hornets and find out if any queen has left the hive, the scientists said. Authorities suspect there may be more nests in the area and will continue to search. An information session was planned for Monday.
Despite their nickname, the world’s largest hornets kill at most a few dozen people a year in Asian countries. Experts probably say much less. Hornets, wasps, and bees typically found in the US kill an average of 62 people a year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The real threat from the Asian giant hornets, which are 2 inches long, lies in their devastating attacks on bees, which are already plagued 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 in North America.
