Officials on lookout for Asian giant hornets
Asian giant hornets at the entrance of a nest in 2021. This was one of three nests researchers with the Washington State Department of Agriculture eradicated last year in an attempt to ensure the hornet does not gain a foothold in North America.
Washington State Department of Agriculture/courtesy photo
A team of researchers with the Washington State Department of Agriculture in protective suits hold a canister full of Asian giant hornets vacuumed out of their nest in 2021. Researchers stunned the hornets by flooding their nest with carbon dioxide gas, and wore the suits because of the hornets’ 1/4-inch stingers.
An Asian giant hornet flies away, trailing a tracking wire.
OLYMPIA — There have not been any confirmed sightings of the Asian giant hornet in Washington so far this year, according to Sven-Erik Spichiger, a managing entomologist with the Washington State Department of Agriculture.
However, Spichiger said WSDA researchers remain on the lookout for the deadly pest and are working with researchers in South Korea and Japan — where the giant hornet is endemic — to find out more about the pests in order to prevent them from getting established in North America.
“We’ve had some reports, but none confirmed,” Spichiger said during an online press conference Tuesday to update the public on the hunt to eradicate the giant hornet. “One serious report last weekend in the same area as the three nests, but it’s very early in the year for that kind of activity.”
WSDA eradicated three Asian giant hornet nests in late 2021 near Blaine. Spichiger said WSDA officials have blanketed that portion of Whatcom County with at least 1,000 traps to catch hornets, and are hoping local residents will put up their own.
The Asian giant hornet preys on wasps and honeybees, can grow to be two inches long and is sometimes referred to as the “murder hornet” because of the way it attacks a honeybee hive, decapitating all of the bees and using the bees and their larvae as food for its own brood.
As part of a new initiative, Spichiger said WSDA is asking Washington residents statewide — especially those in the northwest corner of the state — to leave the nests built by paper wasps on the sides of homes, sheds and other structures alone and instead “adopt” those nests, sign up with a WSDA web site, and send the department photos letting researchers know how those wasp nests are doing. It will help researchers find out where Asian giant hornets may be and also learn more about the condition of wasps in the wild, no matter where in Washington they are.
“Don’t kill them. Report the location to WSDA and tell us each week how it’s doing,” Spichiger said. “All three nest reports (from last year) came from people noticing Asian giant hornets eating paper wasps.”
Spichiger said to help learn more about Asian giant hornets, WSDA researchers are going to work with researchers in Japan and South Korea who have wild populations to study. Spichiger said WSDA researchers have no idea how far an Asian giant hornet queen will travel to find a new site to make a nest, and it would be irresponsible to release any in the wild in Washington.
Spichiger also said WSDA is looking at using drones to follow Asian giant hornets, noting is it unnerving to try and follow a tagged hornet through a forest not knowing entirely where a nest is.
The Entomological Society of America is currently considering a new common name for the Asian giant hornet, Spichiger said. The hornet, which has a scientific name of Vespa mandarinia, has no official common name, and is sometimes confused with the similar Asian hornet, which has devastated honeybee populations in Europe in the last few years, he said.
Charles H. Featherstone can be reached at cfeatherstone@columbiabasinherald.com.
