2020 has been a real barrel of laughs, huh? Well, now you can add murder hornets to the list of things to worry about. Also known as Giant Asian Hornets, the killer bugs have been spotted in Washington State and this means trouble is on the way. According to AP, scared residents of the town of Blaine, Whatcom County were calling in sightings of the monster insects and state scientists have now confirmed their presence.
Washington State Department of Agriculture entomologist Sven-Erik Spichiger spoke to journalists, explaining that:
“We believe we are dealing with a nest. We hope to locate the nest in a couple of weeks and eradicate it.”
Spichiger went on to warn that all data says that the hornets are about to enter what he describes as their “slaughter phase” and that it’s vital that they discover and destroy the hive before that. Sadly, though, so far, they’ve made little progress.
One scientist did manage to corner a live hornet and bravely attempted to glue a radio tag to it, but he ultimately failed. So far, it seems our best bet is to entrap a murder hornet and convert it into an unwitting ally and send it to betray its brethren, but I wouldn’t want to be the entomologist tasked with that.
The silver lining is that right now the murder hornets don’t necessarily want to murder us. There are multiple reports of people being stung to death in Asia, but the most common target of the hornets are actually honey bees. This doesn’t mean they’re not a menace, though, as mankind depends on our bee buddies to pollinate crops. If the slaughter phase kicks off and the bee population of Washington State finds itself under siege from gigantic monster hornets, we could see the state’s raspberry and blueberry crops decimated.
And is it really that crazy to suggest that one day the murder hornets might tire of their honey bee prey and set their sights on conquering our human civilization and subjecting us under their deadly stings? All current scientific evidence suggests that this scenario is a ludicrous and infantile fantasy cooked up to ease a slow news day, but who really knows what goes on in the sick, sick mind of a murder hornet?
