Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

axios.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

281–290 of 398 posts

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

#281

Post by tchock23 »

yawz wrote: post #153
roughly wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've read a number of articles describing the stressors on bee colonies, but I'm interested in your take - what do you see as the primary factors affecting your colonies?

I live in place where winters are harsh. Colonies need to be well-prepared to successfully overwinter. They are amazingly robust when they are healthy, but anything that affects this preparation can easily be deadly over a period of time. There can be many reasons. The Varroa Mite [0] is one that we have to constantly fight against, these days. The mites don't kill the entire colony, but weakens it so much that the c…

Putting in a plug for a startup working on solving the Varroa mite problem by zapping them with lasers - https://www.beecombplex.com/

Hasn’t officially launched yet, but the early trials are promising.

(Disclosure: I have advised the company)

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

#282

Post by giantg2 »

lostlogin wrote: post #266
giantg2 wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can't find a way to stop them + huge insects = unsolved problem This seems contradictory to me as a beek. 5/16 holes as a mouse guard should also keep huge insects out of the hive. It also should be easy to create pheromone traps if it is true that the hornet's seek out the scent of other dead hornets. On a side note, I see mites as a genetics issue. I would rather see commercial outfits using selection rather tha…

I wonder what would happen with a Queen excluder under the hive, so that the entrance required worker size or smaller? Drone entry/exit and blockages would be an issue after a period presumably.

Yeah, I don't use pollen traps, propolis traps, nor queen excludes. I'm not sure how they would effect drones. I know drones can fit through 3/8 inch. I'm not sure what size the hornets can fit through. If they are the same size as cicada killers, I would guess 3/8 is too small for them.

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

#283

Post by School-Cotton »

cableshaft wrote: post #210
yawz wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Varroa is and has been my #1 problem for a while. I hate it. But I can't agree with this statement: "If these hornets become a serious problem for honeybees, we will find a solution to keep bees safe." It can easy be too late. Look at what's happening in Europe. They simply can't stop the hornets. Of course it's more dramatic to show these huge insects. They are impressive and scary. Mites are small and look insignif…

Just like the US could have treated Coronavirus seriously early on and helped keep numbers down, but chose to do nothing and now it's everywhere and doing far more damage to the economy. Don't let murder hornets become the bee's new Coronavirus equivalent. It sounds like they're already dealing with plenty of pandemic-like issues as it is. To quote George W Bush, who actually took pandemics seriously, "A pandemic is…

> the US could have treated Coronavirus seriously early on and helped keep numbers down

How?

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

#284

Post by at_a_remove »

nn3 wrote: post #182
sokoloff wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chesterton’s Fence: I grew up close to the Chief of our town’s Fire Dept. He explained that they sent the second piece of large equipment primarily because of the re-dispatch problem. If they get a second call which would require the engine, they didn’t want to risk having the fire personnel on scene in the little rescue truck and away from the engine, delaying response to the fire. (For the same reason, they wore th…

They could leave one guy in the station to drive the engine to the fire and drive the rest of the crew in the small van to the fire, where they then man the engine. There is probably more to it, but at least the way you describe it doesn't sound convincing. Also I should add the in the previous cities I lived in they of course didn't do that. They just used small vans for medical emergencies. Originally when I moved…

Hi! I work in this industry.

What equipment with what personnel is dispatched is incredibly complicated. You would be shocked. And most fire districts/departments regularly tweak their "response plans."

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

#285

Post by radium3d »

teawrecks wrote: post #253
honkycat wrote: post #156

I always find the anti-environmentalist position that pops up on HN interesting. For a technical audience, they are amazingly unaware of "Systems Thinking". Saying "MEH, there are other pollinators" is lazy thinking. Our ecosystem is a vast web of interconnections. You cannot predict how one HUGELY important species being destroyed will affect the rest of our ecosystem. Furthermore: People use honey bees for honey (…

The problem is that people think environmentalism is about preserving the environment. The planet's gonna be fine, it's humans who are gonna have a bad time.

Humans (and every other species we cause suffering to) are gonna have a bad time.

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

#286

Post by jdmichal »

Carioca wrote: post #261
masklinn wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I always find the anti-environmentalist position that pops up on HN interesting. For a technical audience, they are amazingly unaware of "Systems Thinking". Saying "MEH, there are other pollinators" is lazy thinking. Our ecosystem is a vast web of interconnections. You cannot predict how one HUGELY important species being destroyed will affect the rest of our ecosystem. FWIW honeybees are not part of the native US…

As an example, passion fruit has to be pollinated by hand (with swabs or special gloves) even in most of its natural range (South America) because only certain species of Uruçu bees can be pollinate it, and they have become rare

Wikipedia mentions carpenter bees are quite capable. Which probably explains how my neighbor's gets pollinated. I know it's certainly not by hand.

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

#287

Post by lostlogin »

giantg2 wrote: post #282
lostlogin wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder what would happen with a Queen excluder under the hive, so that the entrance required worker size or smaller? Drone entry/exit and blockages would be an issue after a period presumably.

Yeah, I don't use pollen traps, propolis traps, nor queen excludes. I'm not sure how they would effect drones. I know drones can fit through 3/8 inch. I'm not sure what size the hornets can fit through. If they are the same size as cicada killers, I would guess 3/8 is too small for them.

Drones can’t fit through my excluders. Every so often I put a frame from the brood boxes above the excluder. Old frames or ones with lots of drone cells. I have to check back in a few days to let the drones out or they die and block the excluder. Workers try to pull them though and jam them in the holes.

I’m currently using some nice American made excluders and they are really nice. They are made of wire and are quite quite rigid.

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

#288

Post by vvG94KbDUtRa »

jdndbfbf wrote: post #10
sokoloff wrote: post #7

> trapping and using dental floss to tie tracking devices to the hornets What? That seems crazy (and cool) to be able to create a tracking device light enough for a hornet to fly and still have enough battery to transmit even a periodic chirp.

The probably don't fly very far from their nest. https://youtube.com/watch?v=3sX7bmNv10c

on the contrary, these things can roam up to 5 miles from their nests

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

#289

Post by varenc »

CameronNemo wrote: post #126
varenc wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are some success stories, like the European Grapevine Moth in CA [1]. The key seems to be aggressive action when the threat is still in it’s infancy and contained. Given that murder hornets weren’t reported in the US until this year, I’m hopeful. For something like the invasive ice plant already covering the West Coast there seems little hope. [1] https://entomologytoday.org/2019/03/08/invasive-species-succ...

>For something like the invasive ice plant already covering the West Coast there seems little hope. Perhaps little hope for widespread eradication, but important areas can be cleaned up.

Agreed! I’ve read about certain coastal areas that have been purged of invasive species. But there’s a constant upkeep cost to keep the invaders from just moving in again a couple years later.

For these murder hornets, if we make a big up front investment in eradicating them now, there’s hope that we can prevent them from establishing themselves and becoming another perpetual battle.

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

#290

Post by jeromegv »

School-Cotton wrote: post #283
cableshaft wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just like the US could have treated Coronavirus seriously early on and helped keep numbers down, but chose to do nothing and now it's everywhere and doing far more damage to the economy. Don't let murder hornets become the bee's new Coronavirus equivalent. It sounds like they're already dealing with plenty of pandemic-like issues as it is. To quote George W Bush, who actually took pandemics seriously, "A pandemic is…

> the US could have treated Coronavirus seriously early on and helped keep numbers down How?

There’s been many weeks where epidemiologist were sounding the alarms but the CDC had basically zero tests available. The whole world was getting infected and the US was flying blind

Or May be just look at what other Asian countries have done (outside of China) and look at what they did. It’s exactly everything the US did not do

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/times-watchdog/sin...

Post reply on HN