A deadly pest has reached North America: The 'murder hornet'

Asian giant hornets can use mandibles shaped like spiked shark fins to wipe out a honeybee hive in a matter of hours

May 04, 20200

Ruth Fremson • New York Times count

Chris Looney, a Washington State entomologist, displays a dead two-inch Asian giant hornet on his jacket in Blaine, Wash. on April 23, 2020. Sightings of the Asian giant hornet have prompted fears that the vicious insect could establish itself in the United States and devastate bee populations.

BLAINE, WASH. – In his decades of beekeeping, Ted McFall had never seen anything like it.

As he pulled his truck up to check on a group of hives near Custer, Wash., in November, he could spot from the window a mess of bee carcasses on the ground. As he looked closer, he saw a pile of dead members of the colony in front of a hive and more carnage inside - thousands and thousands of bees with their heads torn from their bodies and no sign of a culprit.

https://www.startribune.com/a-deadly-pest-has-reached-north-america-the-murder-hornet/570156491/