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The Murder Hornet War Is Over: Species Officially Eradicated from U.S.
The northern giant hornet hasn't been seen spotted in the United States since 2021.
If you’ve been wondering whatever happened with the invasion of so-called murder hornets a few years back, we’ve finally got an answer.
The northern giant hornet, commonly known as the murder hornet, was first spotted in northern Washington near the Canadian border in 2019. A separate population had been spotted in British Columbia, Canada just a few months earlier. Now, officials from the Washington and United States Departments of Agriculture announced Wednesday, December 19, that the invasive hornet has officially been eradicated.
Winning the fight against the northern giant hornet, aka the murder hornet
“We’re pleased to announce the eradication of the northern giant hornet in Washington state,” Derek Sandison, WSDA director, said in a statement. “I’m incredibly proud of our team, which has dedicated years of hard work to safeguarding our state and the nation from this invasive threat to our native pollinators and agriculture. I’d also like to acknowledge the federal, state, and local support that made this feat possible. This success is the result of our combined efforts.”
Those efforts involved collaboration between scientists and citizens who reported sightings, laid out traps, and used cutting edge technology against an invasive insectoid menace. Researchers captured hornets, tied tiny radio trackers to them with dental floss, and followed them back home to wipe out the nests. That might seem like overkill but invasive species like the northern giant hornet are no joke, just ask the fictional crew of Life (streaming now on Peacock), who gave their lives protecting the Earth from an invasive Martian species. Northern giant hornets aren’t quite as dangerous as the hyperadaptive fictional Martians, but they are capable of wiping out entire honeybee colonies in a matter of hours.
Fortunately, no sightings have been reported in British Columbia or Washington since 2021, indicating a rare victory against an invasive species. However, if giant hornets crossed the Pacific twice, they’ll probably do it again. Keeping the northern giant hornet and other invasive species at bay is an ongoing effort.
Everything to know about the northern giant hornet
In spite of their common name, giant hornets aren’t a significant threat to people. They kill fewer people every year than their smaller counterparts in North America. They pose the biggest threat to honeybees, which are highly vulnerable to giant hornet attacks. Just a handful of hornets can wipe out an entire hive in about 90 minutes.
Of course, you wouldn’t want to run into one either. Northern giant hornet stingers are a quarter inch long and capable of injecting seven times the venom of a more typical hornet. Moreover, they can spit painful venom into your eyes. They’ve got a recognizable hornet body plan with a slightly darker coloration, leaning more into orange than yellow, with dark brown or black accents. Workers and drones get about an inch and a half long, while queens can be longer than two inches. They like to nest inside trees or underground and their larvae spin silk cocoons to pupate.
A northern giant hornet's venom is powerful enough to dissolve flesh and its sting has been described as feeling “like a hot nail.” They use that venom to hunt their prey, typically medium or large insects including honeybees and other pollinators. Japanese honeybees have developed a defense against giant hornet attacks, utilizing strength in numbers and their own unique adaptations.
Japanese honeybees vibrate their flight muscles to generate heat and warm the hive in winter and they’ve evolved to survive higher body temperatures. When a giant hornet approaches the hive, approximately 100 bees hide themselves just inside the entrance and wait. Once the hornet enters, the defenders enclose it in a sphere of bees and vibrate their flight muscles. The combined efforts of the bees ratchets up the temperature and CO2 concentrations inside the sphere until the hornet is dead. Western honeybees have no such defense, which is why humanity had to come to their aid.
Watch a fight against an invasive alien species in Life, streaming now on Peacock.
