Apparently, scientists need to dress up in hazmat suits straight out of a dystopian sci-fi movie to collect Asian murder hornets. From the Daily Mail:
The photos from this operation to eradicate murder hornets in Washington state are something. https://t.co/KzMta0Zqaq pic.twitter.com/fqll4gaBJP
— Kim Zetter (@KimZetter) October 24, 2020
This is for one nest, mind you:
The government just has faceless glowing hazmat suit agents on standby to handle a single tree full of bees pic.twitter.com/N9ZWPjkGnd
— joe (@JoePerticone) October 25, 2020
More photos:
These look like photos from the set of a sci-fi film but they actually show Washington State Dept of Agriculture workers in protective suits vacuuming hundreds of 2-inch-long invasive Asian giant hornets from the first nest found in the U.S. https://t.co/jcn2a9AkEh pic.twitter.com/klM3mqcrW4
— Ferris Jabr (@ferrisjabr) October 24, 2020
The found the next by, we kid you not, attaching little transmitters to wasps with dental floss:
Entomologists found the basketball-sized nest, which was in a tree cavity in Blaine, WA, after several attempts to attach radio trackers to captured wasps with glue and dental floss. Sometimes the tracker fell off or the wasp chewed through the floss. Finally one worked. pic.twitter.com/nQXGNfidB0
— Ferris Jabr (@ferrisjabr) October 24, 2020
Or they could’ve just doused the tree in gasoline and set it on fire, no? Note: The “they spit venom” has a pretty funny correction a few tweets down in this thread:
The workers wore rubber gloves/boots & thick foam suits.
Asian giant hornets have ~6 mm long stingers, about 4x the length of a honeybee stinger. The pain has been described as “a migraine contained in the tip of your finger" & a "hot nail driven into you."
And they spit venom. pic.twitter.com/9MINqHLgE6
— Ferris Jabr (@ferrisjabr) October 24, 2020
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The bees are a threat to existing colonies of bees:
Because they are so large, armored, and aggressive, a few dozen Asian giant hornets can rapidly devastate a honey bee colony that has tens of thousands of bees, decapitating the adults and feasting on the larvae pic.twitter.com/YwEEGeAUUo
— Ferris Jabr (@ferrisjabr) October 24, 2020
And our bees do not know how to kill the wasps like their cousins in Asia do:
Japanese honey bees have developed a defense against Asian giant hornets: if a hornet invades, the bees envelop it, beating their wings furiously until they cook and suffocate the hornet to death.
Unfortunately honey bees and native bees in N. America do not have this defense. pic.twitter.com/IlVQdwErcL
— Ferris Jabr (@ferrisjabr) October 24, 2020
And here’s the correction. They actually s*it venom?
*Clarification: although people sometimes describe the hornets as "spitting" venom, it would be more accurate to say they spray or shoot venom, as it comes from their back ends, not their mouths.
Apparently it looks like this: https://t.co/RBHwsOnbRW
— Ferris Jabr (@ferrisjabr) October 25, 2020
There are probably more nests out there:
The basketball-sized nest in WA had 100 – 200 wasps, but it's probably not the only out out there. Nests can be 3 feet across & contain 800+ wasps.
The swiftness w/ which this nest was found and eradicated is encouraging, though. Hopefully these strategies will continue to work.
— Ferris Jabr (@ferrisjabr) October 25, 2020
Sources:
Sources & Morehttps://t.co/jcn2a9AkEh
AP photos by @ElaineMThompsonhttps://t.co/oUU9VOvX8ohttps://t.co/XXwOPhSxFqhttps://t.co/VUUomXaCuehttps://t.co/GnBawRC0xEhttps://t.co/tq6CgDNLXI
Japanese honey bees: https://t.co/eYReHHdsSL
— Ferris Jabr (@ferrisjabr) October 25, 2020
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