The first live murder hornets have been caught in Washington state, and scientists are hoping to find their nest before they destroy beehives throughout the region in their “slaughter stage.”
Scientists caught six of the hornets, at two inches long the largest in the world. They can deliver painful and sometimes deadly stings to humans.
And they can also destroy entire hives of honeybees that pollinate crops throughout the area, and scientists say the hornets are about to enter a particularly aggressive time.
“What we call the ‘slaughter phase,’ where they will visit apiaries, basically mark a hive and attack it in force,” said entomologist Sven Spichiege. “Removing every bee from the hive, decapitating them, killing all of the workers and then spending the last few days harvesting the brood and pupae out of the hive as a food source.”
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