‘Murder Hornets’ in the U.S.: The Rush to Stop the Asian Giant Hornet

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Sightings of the Asian giant hornet have prompted fears that the vicious insect could establish itself in the United States and devastate bee populations.

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If a hornet does get caught in a trap, Dr. Looney said, there are plans to possibly use radio-frequency identification tags to monitor where it goes — or simply attach a small streamer and then follow the hornet as it returns to its nest.

While most bees would be unable to fly with a disruptive marker attached, that is not the case with the Asian giant hornet. It is big enough to handle the extra load.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/02/us/asian-giant-hornet-washington.html?smtyp=cur&smid=tw-nytimes
 
They can fly at 25 mph! I'd hate to have some of those suckers after me.
 
Tailhunter said:
We actually could send china some “carpet bomb” bees.
Kind of like a “pay it forward” for all the things they have done for us.
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I think we’ve already done this, and worse, on a few occasions. Maybe carp, bees, kudzu and happy meal toys are their payback.
 
Who's got a line on 22 LR and 22 Mag shot shells?
Going to need a couple cases for the future.
 
This doesn't seem new to me. I've seen critters like this in NC for my whole life. Is there another 3" long hornet that's native to the US?
 
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I killed this in my shop last night. As I understand it, this is a European hornet and is the only true hornet in NA (minus this new murder hornet of course), having been brought over in cargo from Europe over a century ago.

We had a bunch of these around last fall. This is the first I've seen this season. I never found the nest last year, but this one was hanging around in my shop and had to die.
 
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rantingredneck said:
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I killed this in my shop last night. As I understand it, this is a European hornet and is the only true hornet in NA (minus this new murder hornet of course), having been brought over in cargo from Europe over a century ago.

We had a bunch of these around last fall. This is the first I've seen this season. I never found the nest last year, but this one was hanging around in my shop and had to die.
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My experience with European hornets is that they are mostly live and let live. Unless you come close to their nest.

That said when I see one I try to track down their nest and kill all of them. Don’t want one of my dogs or my kid to get killed because they stumble onto it.
 
Chdamn said:
My experience with European hornets is that they are mostly live and let live. Unless you come close to their nest.

That said when I see one I try to track down their nest and kill all of them. Don’t want one of my dogs or my kid to get killed because they stumble onto it.
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Yeah I generally don't bother and would have let this one live but I'm pretty sure it was trying to build a colony in my shop.

Last year we had a bunch that got active at night and hung out outside our kitchen door by the driveway. When we went outside they would buzz us pretty good. No one got stung. Never found the nest but I killed half a dozen or so.
 
I send my wife out to kill those things. The dog will screw with them if she sees them and that won't end well someday. I'm a kill stuff from distance kind of guy. My wife?Tenacious. She goes out and knocks down the little nests with a broom, stomps them, hoses them with wasp spray and stomps again for good measure. You don't mess with her dog.
 
I am deathly allergic to bees, that SOB is something from a nightmare I have had!
 
Read about them last night. They're called murder hornets because in Japan there have been a number of human deaths. They say multiple stings can equate to snake venom. One guy sent to eradicate a nest and was stung said it was like a hot thumbtack being driven in. And they decimate bee populations because they fed on them. They literally rip their heads off. So far, it's in the Pacific Northwest and they're trying to get of them before they get a foot hold.

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Chdamn said:
My experience with European hornets is that they are mostly live and let live. Unless you come close to their nest.

That said when I see one I try to track down their nest and kill all of them. Don’t want one of my dogs or my kid to get killed because they stumble onto it.
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One of those MFers dove bombed me a few years ago. I was carrying some empty boxes and blocked the attack. Ran my ass in the house and grabbed some hornet spray. Came out with boxes as cover and blasted it. It flew off into the woods. It was almost as if that jerk was targeting me. Guess that big nest I destroyed that day might have been important to someone.
 
They only talk about Washington state. I have seen these in WNC. I lived in Japan and know what they look like, The ones I have seen here were just a tiny bit smaller than the ones I saw in Japan.
 
charliesgrave said:
I think we're the dummies that brought in Kudzu on purpose.


https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/07/the-cicada-killers-are-coming/277688/
Maybe you're thinking of Cicada Killers? I've heard them called "Japanese Hornets" by locals for years.
They don't really hurt anyone. I had them bounce off my fourhead flying around construction sights when I was younger. Ton of them down in Huntersville where new developments were going in.
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That does look like the beast I remember, but I'd swear it was large enough to take a saddle.
 
Catfish said:
This doesn't seem new to me. I've seen critters like this in NC for my whole life. Is there another 3" long hornet that's native to the US?
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European hornets, which despite being big and scary, aren't near as aggressive as yellow jackets and bald faced hornets, have been here for a long time.

South Charlotte and Steele Creek have lots of cicada killers for whatever reason, but they are solitary and harmless, unless you are wanting to get stung. When I was staying in Steele Creek, there were ones that were about as long a my wrist is wide.
 
We had a European hornet best in a dead branch off one of our willow oaks last year. I'm not kidding when I say there would be hundreds of them buzzing aground the other trees all day long, and we could go work outside without being hassled.

Hell, my outdoor shower stall is surrounded by fig trees, and it's common to see a couple dozen of them milling around while I'm naked as a jay bird. If you swat at them, they'll just fly away. They're pretty passive, as far as stinging insects go.

These Japanese hornets are not, and have not been here.
 
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European hornets stung me 9 times on my noggin last summer. They built a giant nest inside of a tree along our driveway one week and did not like me cutting around it on my mower. That was not fun. My head felt like it was on fire and the skin was very tight. We had some people at the barn that day and I went out and sat with them for a bit so they could watch me. The heat and my heart rate scared me. I'll see if I can track down a video that I took of them bastages.

CHRIS

Here is one from the day after they tried to murder me.
 
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fieldgrade said:
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ETA: partial credit to @SmokeyJoe for this one, as I see he posted it in the Funny Pics thread an hour or so before I posted it here. But he’s only getting partial credit because I didn’t see that one before I posted this one...somebody at work had just texted it to me and I remembered this thread. :D
 
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If we could arrange a small swarm of these around the cabin when my wife and kids are there my gun budget would go way up. Maybe some 410’s on turrets?
 
It could be looking like WWII all over again. However, instead of finding "A rifle behind every blade of grass", these Japanese invaders could be faced with a Praying Mantis behind every blade of grass. This video is impressive and shows how strong and lightning fast the Praying Mantis is when destroying it's prey:



Edit: There are a few other YT videos that show the Asian Hornet killing a Praying Mantis but the Mantis' in those videos look like small juveniles.
 
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