1st Asian Giant Hornet Nest In U.S. Found In Washington

WASHINGTON — After months of searching, the Washington State Department of Agriculture has found an Asian giant hornet nest in Blaine, Washington, marking the first time a nest has been found on U.S. soil.

Now that the nest has been found, the Washington State Department of Agriculture plans to destroy the nest on Saturday.

The process to find and eradicate the nest has been a long time coming. The first sign of the invasive insects came last winter, when the corpses of several Asian giant hornets turned up in bug traps in northern Washington. After several more sightings, the department set hundreds of traps in early July in an attempt to capture a live hornet. They captured their first live hornet in July, the second was captured just this month. Researchers placed trackers on both hornets, hoping the insects would lead them to their nests, but all tracking attempts failed — until now.

Experts got their big break this week when two live hornets turned up in traps this Wednesday. Another two were captured Thursday morning. The agriculture department's entomologists managed to attach trackers to three of the four captured hornets.

After tagging the hornets, researchers fed them jam and sent them off in the hopes they would return home.

Around 4 p.m. Thursday, shortly after their release, the second of the three hornets led entomologists to the hornet's nest on a private property in Blaine.

Footage shows the nest buried deep inside a tree — unusual because, while the insects have been known to place nests in dead trees, they usually nest in the ground.

The department says the property owners have granted permission to eradicate the nest and destroy the tree if necessary. Entomologists had hoped to destroy the nest Friday, but say weather concerns pushed their plans into the weekend. The process will involve researchers essentially "vacuuming" the live insects out of the hive before destroying it.

The mission to locate the hornet's nest has always been a race against time: researchers had hoped to find and destroy the nest by mid-September, before the colony could begin making new queens and drones and expanding. There have been some signs already that this may not be the only nest in Washington.

"There is a very good possibility that there is more than just this nest," Sven Spichiger, WSDA managing entomologist said.

In particular, Spichiger says the agriculture department is investigating an area around Birch Bay where several dead hornets turned up in July, and the possibility of a second nest near Blaine. Researchers will monitor both areas for further developments, and say that they will continue to check traps through November at the very least.

"We should be cautiously optimistic we are still just talking about Whatcom County at this point," Spichiger said.

Asian giant hornets have sometimes been called "murder hornets" because their sting can kill an adult human, but such attacks are rare even in their native region of Southeast Asia and Taiwan. Instead, the biggest threat is to the local honeybee population: the hornets are known to decapitate honey bees and systematically destroy their colonies, which in turn can be damaging to plants that rely on the bees for pollination.