The Washington State Department of Agriculture said on Friday that it has found a new Asian hornet nest a few weeks after clearing a large number of invasive species from a tree east of Blaine in Washington State-the second in 2021. .
WSDA Tweet A photo of one of the insects (above), sometimes called the “murder bumblebee”, with a radio tracker. This tiny technique helps to locate the two previous nests, one in October 2020 and one near the end of August.
“The eradication plan is underway and will be implemented in the next few days,” WSDA said in a tweet.
When asked about the location, WSDA replied on Twitter that the nest is located “southwest of the first nest of the year, only a few miles from every incident in North Watercombe County.
Earlier this week, WSDA tweeted pictures of the bumblebee, calling them “two newly confirmed sightings,” which were discovered by residents near the place where the hive was removed. A photo appeared to show a bumblebee attacking a paper wasp nest-this behavior was previously reported in early August. The agency replied in a tweet that it is working to tag and track the wasps on Wednesday.
Come down, but the work is still going on!There are two new confirmed sightings in the general area in 2020 and 2021 #Asian Hornet Nest eradication. Your report does make a difference.Report at https://t.co/o8g9ZHvSAd Or send an email to [email protected] pic.twitter.com/jrM9CUiqtt
— Washington State Department of Agriculture (@WSDAgov) September 8, 2021
Sven-Erik Spichiger, a management entomologist at WSDA, said at a press conference on August 27 that the tracker was tied to the bumblebee using a Kevlar wire, and the WSDA staff carried the receiver to track the insect back to the nest.
“When you try to track things that fly very fast in the Himalayan BlackBerry, tracking events is as difficult as people think,” Spichiger said.
The nest that was eradicated last month was bigger than the nest last fall-this was the first nest found in the United States. The nest in August has nine combs and contains nearly 1,500 life stages: 292 eggs, 422 larvae, 563 cap cells (the bumblebee that is about to be produced), and 195 workers use vacuum cleaners or nets to catch them. There are no males, only one Queen bee.
The Asian hornet is not native to the United States, but the largest hornet species in the world. The first sighting occurred in December 2019 in northwestern Washington State, USA. As we all know, bumblebees will attack and destroy the hives of bees in the “slaughter stage”. In this stage, they kill the bees by beheading. A small group of Asian hornets can kill an entire bee hive within a few hours.
WSDA stated that citizen observers played a key role in alerting the agency so that they can identify new hornets, mark them, and locate nests.
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