Dozens killed and hundreds injured by swarms of giant hornets

reply to post by rickymouse


I think they're already here, man. We've had two gigantic hornets that are colored EXACTLY like those giant hornets outside our house over the past couple of months. One was actually on our front porch night before last. I tried to take a few pictures of it, but they didn't come out too well. Still, it was very large and it looks exactly like the images posted in this thread. Huge yellow and black striped hornet with a bright, wide yellow-orange head. The one here the other night wasn't quite as big as the one in the photos, but the one here a few months ago was definitely close to that size.

I did a thread a few weeks ago about the killer hornets...

They were supposed to be getting to the UK, sometime during September, but they haven't got here yet, thank goodness...

Here's the link to the other thread...
www.abovetopsecret.com...

reply to post by SasquatchHunter


nope, I swear I searched and searched and searched....learned far more than I care to about wasps/bees lol

PS- I HAVE NEVER BEEN STUNG. how I've avoided that is beyond me!

I kill hornets that big fairly regularly at my house in GA. We have a lot of woods around and I have been looking for the nest to take it out as well. They build rather large nests in the trees in GA. And the ones here are easily of the same size as the ones pictured. Next time I kill one I will post a picture of it. I always figured that was the normal size as when I was a kid some 30 years ago I was stung by one that was about the size of my thumb at the time I would say.

The ones around the house are about the size of the last two digits of my pinky finger and I have 3 kids that I don't want to experience the same pain that I did when I was a kid so when I see them I kill them. I use Spectracide Pro Wasp and Hornet Killer and it knocks them out of the sky mid flight.

intrptr
The Japanese variety specialize in attacking honey bee hives for the honey. The video Phoenix brought shows that species at work in Japan. Not sure if this is the same species. I wonder if the decline in Honey Bees has anything to do with this new trend? Maybe the hornets have discovered the culprit is humans and are retaliating?

they do play hell with honey bees, at least the European honey bees, but the African bees have a little trick up their sleeve, when the scout hornet finds the hive, they usually fly out after leaving a set trail to show the hornet colony where they are so they can attack. what the African bees do is when the hornet lands and goes inside the colony they surround it and begin vibrating together, enough to create friction and subsequent heating. this raises the temperature of the hornet over 110 degrees thus killing the hornet, but the temp doesn't bother the African honey bees.

P.S.

they have been in the US for at least 25 years that i know of personally since it's been my job that long to terminate them.

reply to post by LittleBlackEagle


very clever...
kind of makes you wonder how creatures can figure this type of thing out.

reply to post by LittleBlackEagle

Thanks for that info. I remember a show about that defense the bees use to "cook" the hornet. Pretty clever.

So the giant hornets are here in the US now. Gulp...

When we were kids we used to see Tarantula Hawks out here. They were big blue wasps that fascinated us to no end.

reply to post by TrueAmerican


I wonder what is making them do this? Interesting post! S & F

Not genetically modified, sorry that's the most I got out of this thread so far. Conspiracies, conspiracies... the culprit is likely this, vespa mandarinia... here is a photo. I read the article, name was in there as the most likely culprit. They're big. Crazy story. Sorry I don't know how to insert images.

farm8.staticflickr.com...

farm7.staticflickr.com...

reply to post by kdyam

some villagers catch them in nets and cook them up and eat them

EAT them??.. with what wasabi made out of stings..yikes...

You know, I must mention that scientists have mentioned many times that global warming would increase problems with insects.

Maybe after we're all being killed by giant hornets conservatives will admit that global warming is real, but probably not.

This has nothing to do with the environment – it is completely normal behaviour for these creatures. The death rate is on target for an average year. They are not bigger than before or more aggressive or more numerous. Everything is normal. There is no conspiracy here.

And our planet is warming because we are coming out of a mini ice age. The normal state of Earth is actually not to have ice caps.

rickymouse
I hope they don't send those hornets over here in crates of goods. We don't need anything like that over here.

We already have the Africanized killer bee's in a lot of the southern US. They will chase you down much like the hornets in the OP.

reply to post by fossilera

Found out later that the wasp goes by the name "cicada killer" here (or Japanese Hornets elsewhere).

Your information is incorrect.

Cicada killer

Wow that is scary... Reminds me of that one episode of family guy though.

28 out of 1.35 billion...

I wonder if it's not the [dead] hornets that we should be grieving...

reply to post by Frost281


whole thing gives me the heebi jeebis!!!!!!

My initial reaction is "that must've been extremely painful to be stung 200 times by something that large". Trying to imagine being one of those stung over and over is a skin-crawling thought. They don't lose their stingers like bees so there's basically no stopping the stings without killing them or until they move on. Crazy, indeed

reply to post by TrueAmerican


Are they Japanese hornets? They are huge. I used to see them here a lot (eastern US). I only killed one this year. Almost as big as my pinky finger.

reply to post by intrptr


Giant Japanese hornets have been here forever. I remember seeing them eating the fallen pears from our pear tree when I was like 6-10. Rarely see them now, and I've never seen a nest or been stung by one.