Short Wave - Here's The Deal With 'Murder Hornets'

Episode Date: May 8, 2020

Reports of so-called 'murder hornets' have been all over the news this week. (Even though they were first spotted in the United States late last year.) We talk with entomologist Samuel Ramsey who explains how much of a threat the Asian giant hornet could be to honeybees throughout the country. And, he shares his own encounter fighting these insects while researching bees in Thailand.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

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Okay, here we go. You're listening to Shortwave from NPR. Today, we've got one of our favorite guests. Well, well, well, Dr. Bugs. Back on Shortwave. That's so quickly, too. That's Sammy Ramsey, aka Dr. Bugs. He's an entomologist that you might remember from an episode we aired

about honeybees. I appreciate you making time for us, little people, now that you're famous. Oh, well, the title Murder Hornets. It just has a tendency to get everybody interested. A massacre in the honeycombs. There were dead bees all over the front of the hive, all over the bottom board. Dubbed the Murder Hornet for its powerful sting in the way it decapitates its prey. They all had been chopped to bits.

They were decapitated. and all it takes is a couple dozen to show up and start wapping off heads. Sammy's been pretty busy since these murder hornets started getting the spotlight this week. Sammy, how many murder hornet interviews have you done? Oh, my goodness. This will be the fourth murder hornet interview that I've done in the past four days. Okay, so if you haven't seen the news, basically a species of hornet has shown up in the states, and people are pretty worried about them.

Sammy has dealt with these critters firsthand doing bee research in Thailand. These hornets just kept showing up and carrying off my bees, and then I would come back the next day, and there would just be nothing left of a bunch of headless bees inside of my colony. Very disturbing. That's when Sammy took matters into his own hands. I put on my bee suit and just started whacking hornets out of the air, and I think I got a little bit too cocky.

and one of them showed up and had like a sister with her. And so I knocked her out of the air and the other one just grabbed onto my leg. The look in its eyes while it was coming after me. It started chewing into my B-suit and just whacking its stinger into the side of my B-suit. And thankfully, I was wearing a B-suit that was really puffy and really large. And so its stinger, while it got through the suit, couldn't quite get to my leg. So I hit it with my Hive tool, stepped on it. but it took a little bit for me to actually be able to take a breath again.

Well, I'm glad you made it out, Sammy. Well, I wouldn't have died. So something that people do need to know is even though they have the name Murder Hornet. You're not likely to suffer fatal effects from a single sting from a hornet. So today in the show, we talk Murder Hornets. Just how worried do we actually need to be about this newest honeybee threat? So, Sammy, we brought you back. because people have been going wild over what's being called a murder hornet.

What hornet are we talking about, Sammy? What's going on with that name? So we're talking about Vespa Mandarinia. And typically, it's called the Asian giant hornet. It's the largest hornet species. And it's a species of hornet that was actually found in North America last year. So it's been months. But when we were sounding the alarm about this months ago, we didn't quite have the right marketing.

going. We were calling it the, we were calling it Vesma mandarinia. Some people call it the sparrow bee, which is just not not the best kind of name to go with. When you really want to get headlines, you go with Murder Hornet. Someone attached the name Murder Hornet to it, and it's all that we've heard since. So they're in the news because late last year was the first time that they'd been observed in the U.S. Is that right? Precisely. It's the first time that they've been observed in the U.S. because this is an invasive species. They're very commonly found in a number of areas throughout East Asia, Southeast Asia, and in that range, they can be very, very, very problematic,

and they're a well-known insect. But when they arrived in North America, we were very surprised, of course, to see them. And we're still doing a good bit of detective work to determine how they even got here. Sure. But they're in the news this week. Basically, you're telling me because somebody called them a murder hornet. Yep. All right.

That sounds right. That is precisely it. So, Sammy, what do Asian giant hornets look like? So the Asian giant hornet is, it kind of seems like someone just stitched together a bunch of nightmares and just ran with it. Because when you look at it straight on, you see this face with these bulbous sort of teardrop shaped eyes that kind of curve around in a way that looks sinister. Their jaws are really what's very frightening on this triangle-shaped head. head, they've got these very sharp, serrated jaws. And those are very functional and rather frightening. They can tear through a number of different materials. The back end of them is just as

frightening. So they have the stinger that is about a quarter of an inch long and can pierce through be suits, jeans, clothing of pretty much any sort. So they're a bundle of nightmares. And they're like two inches long, right? So that's like, that's like a a good part of my pinky finger. Yeah. It's, I mean, we've been saying that it's a hornet about the size of a normal person's thumb. Oh, my God. Okay. So, so the big reason that people are freaking out about them being here is that, you know, back where they're from originally, they can pretty much destroy honeybee colonies, right? Yeah, it's, it's awful. So in their native range, when they find honeybee colonies, a good, maybe 20 hornets.

can destroy a colony of 40,000 bees in just a matter of hours. Wow. So they are very frightening and very concerning, but they're actually not as concerning in their native range as you would think, because the bees that have kind of grown up around them have evolutionary abilities that allow them to combat these organisms really, really well. Sammy, I have heard about how bees fight these hornets, and it's wild. I'm not surprised that you've heard about it,

because it is a pretty sensational thing to see. Yes. Gotcha. Okay. So basically you've got hornets, like one of these big murder hornets show up. And they kind of like, they make the initial moves and then they go back and recruit more murder hornets. So the bees are trying to deal with that first hornet.

Is that right? You have to deal with that first hornet. A whole squadron of hornets will totally outgun even the largest bee colonies. Those things are like flying armored tanks. And so what they have to do is. deal with that first scout, and they can fix the whole problem. So when they're hanging out in front of the colony, they'll sort of coax the hornet inside, kind of giving them those come hither eyes.

Sure, sure. When the hornet comes inside, there's a whole squadron of bees hanging out just above it that drop onto the hornet's body, cover it in bees, and they all start vibrating their flight muscles, and they actually create so much heat in this process that they cook the hornet, and the carbon dioxide that's produced in the process, also totally can suffocate the hornet as well. And so it's a pretty remarkable ability that they create a convection oven in nature to kill their enemies.

I mean, murder bees, it sounds like. Yes. Well, I mean, this is an arms race. And if the bees did not develop some way of killing these hornets, they would definitely be extinct by now. Okay. So is that why we're concerned because we're not sure that like our North America bees, like are U.S. honeybees have the ability to fight them? Is that... Precisely. We're actually well aware that our bees do not have this ability.

Okay. And I mean, it's just what our bees need right now, right? And the pantheon of other issues that they're already dealing with, now they have a murder hornet, along with varroa mites that are sucking out their liver and all these different viruses and nutrition issues. It's a lot. Right. Because, Sammy, last time you were on the show, you were talking about how, you know, our honey bees are at risk from the three peas, which are poor nutrition, parasites, and pesticides. Perfect. That's the fourth pea is perfect, because you nailed it. So now they have to deal with this, too, potentially.

Yeah. And, I mean, our bees, there's only so much, like, over time that you can deal with in terms of stress without it reducing productivity in the colony. Even the colonies that survive when they're spending so much of their energy, it's just, it's a rough deal. So, Sammy, I know that some researchers are saying that this is kind of like getting blown out of proportion, you know, like including the name Murder Hornet. How do you feel about that?

So here's how I feel about that. I am glad that people are paying the level of attention to it that they are paying. Because right now, this could be something that is blown out of proportion. I so hope that it is. But unfortunately, in the spectrum of different invasive species, we don't have a wonderful track record. and actually keeping invasives from becoming established. Oftentimes, when they arrive, we have a very difficult time eradicating them. Oftentimes we wait a while in determining what it is that we can do about them because they're new to us.

So the hope is that we kind of act now to prevent us losing a lot of honeybees. What can we, I mean, what can we do about this, Sammy? If we act now, and by act now, I mean, we need to track these Hornet colonies. So there have been a few of them that have been found. But the colonies die at the end of the fall. And the queens, who have already mated, they burrow underground and they just hang out there all winter long. But it's around April and May where they start coming out, they start feeding on sap, and they start looking for a new place to build a colony. And those are the ones that we have to track. And if we can kill all the queens that have actually started nesting underground,

we can effectively keep them from becoming established in the U.S. Got it. We got to murder the murder hornets. Unfortunately, we have to murder the murder hornets. And I, being Dr. Bugs, am not one to pretty much ever tell people that that's what we need to do. But unfortunately, just because of how concerning these creatures can be for bee health, we need to make sure if we can that we don't allow them to establish. Well, Sammy Ramsey, Dr. Bugs.

I mean, I'm sad about the hornets. I'm glad to hear you talk. I'll say that. It is always a pleasure to speak with you. Always. And I am impressed, so you remember the three peas? I mean, yes. You were listening to a brother. I appreciate that. Sammy Ramsey is an entomologist and research fellow with the United States Department of Agriculture. This episode was produced by Britt Hansen and Emily Vaughn, who also checked the facts.

Beatt-Lay was the editor. I'm Maddie Safaya. Thanks for listening to Shortwave from NPR.