Giant Murder Hornets are Killing Honeybees as they Invade North America

Murder hornets (Vespa mandarinia), commonly known as Asian giant hornets, are the world's biggest wasps.

These hornets are native to Asia, but international trading unintentionally brought them to North America, where they threaten local animals by killing other insects such as wasps and bees.

Murder hornets were first discovered in North America in August 2019 on Vancouver Island, Canada. According to the Washington State Department of Agriculture (WSDA), the hornets were confirmed to be in the United States in December 2019, when the WSDA validated two hornet complaints near Blaine, Washington.

Entomologists tracked down and destroyed the first murder hornet nest in Blaine 11 months later by attaching radio trackers to live hornets they had captured and followed them back to their nest, as previously reported by Live Science.

In the years 2020 and 2021, more murder hornets were recorded in Washington and Canada. However, according to the WSDA, one dead hornet located in Marysville, Washington, in June 2021 looked unconnected to any of the previously identified hornets and so was from a different introduction.

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