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"Murder Hornets" Are Dangerous to Our Fragile Honey Bee Ecosystem


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    So obviously there's been quite a bit of talk this year about the so called "murder hornet". It's mostly turned into a running joke at this point that these hornets are just icing on the 2020 cake, but hopefully people are aware that it's a bit more serious than that. It feels easy to dismiss these hornets as an extremely rare occurrence that we have under control. I don't think anyone actually thinks they're going to be chased by one of these things anytime soon. I myself have no fear of that becoming a reality (any time soon), and that's coming from someone that's pretty terrified of wasps.

    What I am afraid of is how fast they can (maybe are?) colonizing. These murder hornets, AKA Asian Giant Hornets, can enter a large honey bee colony and completely annihilate them in basically no time. It only takes a few of these hornets to decapitate an entire bee colony. They then fly back to their own nest with the bees throraxes to feed their young Sad. People that have seen what these things do are blown away by the destruction.

    So again, I'm definitely pretty scared that I'll run across one of these giants one day. But I'm much more scared of what these things will do to our already delicate honey bee population. We all know how important bees are. Introducing something like the Asian Giant Hornet that could wipe out entire bee colonies into the ecosystem is extremely dangerous. I'm really hoping there are enough people that are taking this seriously right now to make sure this doesn't happen.

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    Good post. Here's a really good video on this from Vice. (Don't watch if you're squeamish).

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    I must admit, I'm pretty afraid of hornets as well. Had a colony in my back yard, took a sting and wouldn't go outside until they were gone pretty much. Yeah I've heard of these before. Do they have any natural predators that we could introduce that wouldn't harm our local environment? Here's Coyote getting stung by one of these things. Looks overwhelmingly painful.