r/Beekeeping • u/escapingspirals • 23h ago

General Giant Asian hornets considered eradicated in Canada and the US

https://www.wdbj7.com/2024/12/19/invasive-murder-hornets-are-wiped-out-us-officials-say/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR1LBJOBGVf_drmvtsoJpxbr7FjzsJPoMH0kj07MdAwRpPrqYKp6cRoABiE_aem_HaN1k4h33sowaYY9dkSinQ#hzvhrqfgmhw6spw8zsqtf7xbimhclbopd

Sorry if this has already been posted. Just saw this article shared on FB today.

251 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

15 comments sorted by

67

u/Raist14 22h ago

I was very surprised when I noticed an article on this recently. It’s not often that an invasive insect is actually eradicated.

Usually when I hear they have spotted an invasive insect in the US I generally say to myself: “Well I guess we have those now.”

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u/Drdude101 22h ago

Too bad the yellow legged hornet, which is a very close relative to the Northern Giant Hornet, is all but established in Georgia.

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u/Valuable-Self8564 United Kingdom - 10 colonies 21h ago

V. velutina? Really? I know they were detected a while ago, but I hadn’t seen anything since.

22

u/michaelyup 23h ago

Don’t think it was posted here, but I saw a similar article recently.

I had some kind of hornet in my yard, was temporarily worried it was murder hornets, but no. They were huge, and made borrows in the yard, the opening was about the size of a half dollar coin, several openings per burrow. My dog likes to catch bugs, so I was really worried he’d get one. I flooded the holes and filled them in with dirt. They moved away.

28

u/ST34MYN1CKS 23h ago

Might have been cicada killer wasps! Huge, non-aggressive but very scary-looking. They like to burrow into Sandy hillsides and are technically solitary, but will sometimes make their burrows near one another which can make them appear like a hive. They can be BIG

12

u/michaelyup 23h ago

Yes, they were probably cicada killers, but so was my dog. He loved catching cicadas, let them buzz in his mouth and then crunch.

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u/SpaceGoatAlpha 14h ago

( * om-nom-a-nom-nom, gulp* ) 🐕

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u/SwallowHoney 17h ago

I hope this turns out to be true. For the TL/DR can someone explain how they died?

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u/escapingspirals 14h ago

Washington state and the US department of agriculture partnered together with the local community to put up traps near all known sightings. They also captured a live one and attached a transmitter to it so they could follow it back to the nest. They found the nest and destroyed it right as several queens were about to emerge. There hasn’t been a confirmed sighting since 2021.

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u/Malawi_no Norway 6h ago

Think something like this was posted a few weeks ago, but then it was only about it beeing assumed eradicated in the US.
Guess this gives greater hope, as if it was still in Canada, it would have found it's way back to the US at some point.

Ultimately we cannot know for sure before a few more years have passed.

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u/Eyesocketz 1h ago

How do we do the same for lantern flies?

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u/escapingspirals 1h ago

I’m not sure we can. This article makes it seem the hornet situation was very localized. I feel like lantern flies are already widespread in the US

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u/Tutgut 14h ago

[x] doubt