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Washington crews destroy first U.S. “murder hornet” nest

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Re: Washington crews destroy first U.S. “murder hornet” nest

#81

Post by bgentry »

doc_gunthrop wrote: post #70

Murder hornets are a real threat to honey bee hives. A handful of hornets can take out a hive of thousands. What's interesting is the way that honey bees defend against them. A bunch of bees surround each hornet, then they intensify the flapping of their wings, which then generates enough heat to kill the hornet. In other words, the hornets are cooked alive.

It’s worth noting that the honeybee defense mechanism you describe is unique to Asian honeybees, which evolved this defense specifically because of the native Asian giant hornet / murder hornet.

European honeybees, which are used in most of the world, have no such defense mechanism and would indeed be helplessly slaughtered by these hornets.

I’d definitely advocate watching some YouTube footage about these creatures, they’re fascinating.

Re: Washington crews destroy first U.S. “murder hornet” nest

#82

Post by luckman212 »

DoofusOfDeath wrote: post #33
samcheng wrote: post #5

I've never had to deal with a murder hornet infestation, but I can approve of their 'vacuum' method for clearing yellowjacket nests in high-traffic areas. Partially fill a shop vac with soapy water, stick the nozzle as close to the nest entrance as possible, then turn on the vacuum and hear the wasps get sucked into the machine as they try to enter or exit the nest. It takes a few hours, and potentially a couple of s…

> No fancy beekeeper suit necessary Does that perhaps depend on the species of wasp, or maybe the reach of the wand? IIRC, there was one youtube video where the little bastards went straight for the dude's face during shop-vac'ing. He could smell the venom they were trying to spray in his eyes. When one of the wasps (or hornets?) went straight for his GoPro sensor, its face filled my large monitor and I nearly had a…

Please share the link to that video if you can somehow recall it! Sounds better than most of the junk I've been watching on Netflix lately.

Re: Washington crews destroy first U.S. “murder hornet” nest

#84

Post by hnarn »

bloak wrote: post #54
samcheng wrote: post #5

I've never had to deal with a murder hornet infestation, but I can approve of their 'vacuum' method for clearing yellowjacket nests in high-traffic areas. Partially fill a shop vac with soapy water, stick the nozzle as close to the nest entrance as possible, then turn on the vacuum and hear the wasps get sucked into the machine as they try to enter or exit the nest. It takes a few hours, and potentially a couple of s…

I'm no expert, but I've read a bit about Vespula vulgaris (the most common sort of wasp in the UK) and tackled a few nests in the past. My impression is that if you put a vacuum cleaner next to the entrance you may, if you're lucky, catch nearly all the wasps that leave the nest, but the queen never leaves the nest, and the eggs and larvae don't leave the nest, and I think there may also be some workers that stay in…

Might be tricky if the nest is in a garage or something (and not easy to cut down and move), but otherwise that could probably be solved by burning it.

Re: Washington crews destroy first U.S. “murder hornet” nest

#86

Post by peteradio »

samcheng wrote: post #5

I've never had to deal with a murder hornet infestation, but I can approve of their 'vacuum' method for clearing yellowjacket nests in high-traffic areas. Partially fill a shop vac with soapy water, stick the nozzle as close to the nest entrance as possible, then turn on the vacuum and hear the wasps get sucked into the machine as they try to enter or exit the nest. It takes a few hours, and potentially a couple of s…

Propane weed torch is another good non-chemical solution that might be appealing to some depending on nest location.

Re: Washington crews destroy first U.S. “murder hornet” nest

#88

Post by nealabq »

fnbr wrote: post #46
Exmoor wrote: post #19

It makes me a little nauseous to think about all the resources going to tracking down these insects, but this is truly an area where an ounce of prevention is worth many pounds of cure. The scope of North America's invasive species problem is enormous. For many folks in urban areas, it's possible that you might go your whole day only encountering one native bird species (American Crow), but a whole host of invasive s…

I’mfrom Alberta. My favorite party trick when talking to non-native Albertans is to pull up the “world rat population” map: https://www.pinterest.ca/pin/657947826782505650/ I have no idea how accurate it is, of course.

Thanks for the pointer. A direct link (not going thru pinterest) is:

https://vividmaps.com/global-rat-distribution-map/

Vividmaps.com is a great site.

Re: Washington crews destroy first U.S. “murder hornet” nest

#90

Post by nn3 »

sokoloff wrote: post #64
anm89 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are living, shitting, and dying en masse on the streets of LA who need food and basic sanitation but you really can't even imagine a non malicious interpretation of someone saying paying for teams of bubble suited wasp chasers seems like potentially a misallocation of resources? Or do you just generally like to bully anyone who challenges any form of government spending by attacking strawmen?

Not GP, but this seems like being upset by the environmental damage resulting from your city fire department driving diesel firetrucks in relative and absolute scale and scope.

I'm actually somewhat upset about this in my city. The fire department is driving these gigantic fire engines with ladders and everything to every medical emergency, when just a small van would be totally fine.
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