Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 Matt Swain wrote:
Won't these murder hornets suffer greater predation from insect eating birds, bats, etc? Being large and colorful you'd think insect eaters would target them more.

I'm sure to an extent, but at the same time these guys can actually fight back.

 Matt Swain wrote:
Won't these murder hornets suffer greater predation from insect eating birds, bats, etc? Being large and colorful you'd think insect eaters would target them more.

The thing is non-native species can be shielded from predators because they are new. Predators within a stable ecosystem will often have specific food groups that they predate on. Provided those food groups remain in abundance, they've no need to experiment outside and go for new food sources.
Even if the hornets then become a potential food source, they have defences of their own. Habits, activity times, stinger, pincers, behaviour etc... These are all things that could mean that they could be of less threat from predators in a non-native environment. Indeed it might be that nothing wants or is capable of eating them. As a result they can expand with basically no predatory pressure.

Invasive species can be a huge problem like this. The other side of the coin is them being able to exploit resources in abundance. Perhaps they start devouring a food source that was previously untapped*; or they are capable of adapting to shifting food groups more readily. Combine that with a high breeding rate and you've a species that has limited predatory pressure; abundant food and rapid population expansion potential. All the three things that an invasive species needs to erupt into an ecosystem and cause immense damage to it.

It should also be noted that predators don't really control prey populations. Its a balance between prey and predator since, in a balanced stable ecosystem** the predator does not want to consume all its food source, or else it in turn will go extinct. As a result when food is abundant predators increase in population; when it dwindles predators decline in population. Each group affects the other. You can see this easily with hares and lynx where the lynx predate on the hares almost exclusively. So you can easily track rises in one population causing a reaction in the other - as hares go up lynx go up a few months later; as hares go down lynx also go down, again with some lag. The lynx isn't controlling the hares any more than the hares are controlling the lynx populations.



*or lost its consuming species
** accepting that most ecosystems are dynamic and almost always in a state of constant change.

I imagine the main concern is for wild bee populations, as it seems to me that a bit of wire mesh over the entrances to farm hives with holes too small for the murder hornets would manage that facet of the issue reasonably well.

These things are big, I wonder if one could be caught, have a radio beacon attached to it and tracked to it's nest. If they're threatening bee populations it might be worth a try.

You're about 2 years too late.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-018-0092-9

That's regular Asian Hornets too, so the Giants should be less of an issue.

There you go! Australia doesn't look that bad now does it hey!

RiTides wrote:I swore I wasn't going to watch any more videos on this, but I tried Maréchal's above (which is in French, so I was spared ) and then they were randomly mentioned in an unrelated video series I follow this morning

I do hope all the coverage and awareness might translate into something that aids the fight against these things getting established... but I don't know what that would take the form of. Maybe funding for an intensive effort to find and root out the nests of the few sightings so far? It seems like it would need to happen really soon to be effective, but obviously now is when people have a more immediate-consequence problem to worry about...

Matt Swain wrote:Won't these murder hornets suffer greater predation from insect eating birds, bats, etc? Being large and colorful you'd think insect eaters would target them more.

I saw a video of a preying mantis calmly walk up to one and eat it's head, these things have predators.

https://youtu.be/w1_e_QIdUtM

i see of lot of these getting eaten by bats and other insect predators in america, i hope it keeps their population down.

BTW you cat is still a bigger badass than a murder hornet, at least cats can survive being attacked by one.

https://youtu.be/N9gS--wMHeE

One of the best way to keep them at bay is to trap them in the early nesting season, so you catch the queens before they successfully found a their nests and push too far into the country. However the results might sill be mitigated at best...

These hornets do have predators in their native ecosystem, but not in ours yet, so that if they slip inside our fauna, few other animals will hunt them for food and not right aay, since these things were never supposed to be there in the first place. It'd need time to become commonplace. By this time, damage can already have been inflicted.

Ecosystems are tricky, most reports you get is that introducing or deleting a species almost always causes obvious changes in the ecosystem as all animals that compose it interinteract closely.

By the way, ie read too about tracking nests thanks to captured giant hornets, it is alleged that they are massive enough to carry tiny trackers on their backs.

What appears to be a fairly balanced view of the insect and the problem. I didn't realise, at least at the time of recording, that there had been no actual sightings of colonies and only 2 sightings of individual hornets.

If that's true, then this is the definition of making a hornet out a wasp nest.

Be warned, if you're triggered by over application of "air quotes" this video isn't for you.

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
By the way, ie read too about tracking nests thanks to captured giant hornets, it is alleged that they are massive enough to carry tiny trackers on their backs.

That is a really good idea!

And Azrael, there was an active colony found in Canada (my understanding is this whole area of interest is right near the border) for what it's worth:
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/alberta/article-nanaimo-bc-expert-who-dealt-with-murder-hornets-agrees-threat-is/

Definitely not a biblical plague, as your video points out . And of even less concern for Canada, given the cold that will take them out. I think it would be a bigger concern moving south, but as the article above points out, there are larger threats to bee populations... unfortunately they're getting it from all sides

 Azreal13 wrote:
If that's true, then this is the definition of making a hornet out a wasp nest.

Be warned, if you're triggered by over application of "air quotes" this video isn't for you.

I believe the saying is "making a homicide bee out of a mole nest."

Unfortunately they've found what they think is a dead queen, meaning the original colony would have likely produced a number of new queens:

https://api.nationalgeographic.com/distribution/public/amp/animals/2020/06/another-asian-giant-hornet-found-washington-state



Apparently genetic testing also confirmed the sighting in Canada (10 miles north) was from a different source (both almost certainly from shipping containers, according to the article).

Still a chance to eradicate it, but it does lend a lot of urgency as they've confirmed the hornets are successfully reproducing (and surviving the winter) here...

There still is a chance, although it's hard to spot this yet few individuals or nests, it's like seeking a needle in a straw ball...

We'll see how it turns, but I wouldn't be too optimistic considering the vespa velunina spread through most France despite effort to counter it. However considering the immensity of the american territory compared to that of proud Gaule, it will certainly take long until it makes its way in other, further states.

I've discovered while roaming the internet that japanese beekeepers trap giant hornets with sticking traps laid on top of the bee hives! I've know idea about how effective it might be but still a fascinating sight in a way!

Well, one of the best ways to find a needle in a haystack is to burn the haystack...

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
I've discovered while roaming the internet that japanese beekeepers trap giant hornets with sticking traps laid on top of the bee hives! I've know idea about how effective it might bee but still a fascinating sight in a way!

Fixed.

Unknowingly dug into a yellowjacket nest once. That was fun.

Picked up a shovelful of mulch and dirt, turned around to throw it in the wheelbarrow...and sensed something was wrong. Turned around as if doing a slow motion WTF to see a yellowjacket tornado right in front of me. I dug straight into and exposed a nest. Yay me!

I ran. And then ran some more. Those things follow you farther than honeybees and such. Really aggressive suckers. Only got one sting (woo!), although there were more stinging the hell out of my jacket. They can sting multiple times, so they just let loose on you.

After regrouping and gathering a few cans of spray (stuff that linemen use that shoots 15-20 feet and instant kills), they were no more. Better living through chemistry.

Moral of the story: Gorgon had 12" flamer weapons before Admech

Shipping containers (like waste dump water from large ships) have spread a lot of bad things around the globe. The habitat of the brown recluse, for example, includes "places near a place that uses shipping containers" pretty much worldwide, but worst in the USA (since historically, we bring crap here to buy, from most other places, rather than exporting it.)
Similar are the parasites currently in the pacific salmon population, its something that got dumped out when ships from the japan area flushed their ballast water to take on new cargo without losing balance.

Sadly, its all way too late for controlling MOST of these issues -- its not like we haven't been shipping shipping stuff since about WW2, worldwide, and back. Its pretty amazing that's as bad an outcome as we got so far -- a few beetles eating all the forests of canada to death, a few pythons to fight the alligators in the 'Glade, a few africanized honeybees to fight the fire ants for territory, a few murder hornets to kill the angry african honeybees, and ... wow, ok, so its a lot of stuff, and a few fish. The coolest being the snakehead fish (in viet culture a high delicacy worth eating) in the chesapeake watershed, and the wierdest being the one that jumps out of the water straight up when startled.


AAAAll this is buildup to the most ridiculous invasive fish video I ever saw...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nc-e8EGkLMo

Which is basically PDF soldiers trying to stop a xeno invasion and getting meleed. If only they had proper lasguns!

ok, second most ridiculous xeno fighting video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqykDINEcGo

Dukeofstuff wrote:

Sadly, its all way too late for controlling MOST of these issues -- its not like we haven't been shipping shipping stuff since about WW2, !

You're a bit late by WW2. Whilst we have sped things up to an insane degree (at our fastest you could go round the world in 3 days and that included Concord stopping more than once I believe); which certainly helps the chances of things migrating - we've been doing it accidentally and deliberately for thousands of years.

Heck the classic English Countryside is often depicted with pheasants, chickens and rabbits and apple orchards - not a single one of which are native to the UK at all. It's believed Romans brought many of them over. Same for many crop species and other things. We've been moving stuff around for a very very long time. It's just that today we are far more aware of the potential devastation that they can cause.

Actually, I was a smidge early -- I was saying simply the modern shipping container itself was invented around WW2. I remembered only that it was an "immediate post ww2" item in a vague sense, but on checking, it was started by a smart guy named Maclean in 1956. Those containerized boxes DEEPLY changed the speed of ship on and off lading, and thus, greatly increased the load and unload of LOTS.

Wow. So, my browser stayed open in the background, and I have to admit, this is probably the first big fishing contest I approve of, especially when you consider this invasive species has no limit, and is very edible.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQYJd-7iQb8 ...

Odd, ain't it, how sometimes a problem becomes an opportunity -- consider that we have a ready source of nitrogen for fertilizer, or food for people, bingo.

I wonder what murder hornet tastes like?

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Well, one of the best ways to find a needle in a haystack is to burn the haystack...

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
I've discovered while roaming the internet that japanese beekeepers trap giant hornets with sticking traps laid on top of the bee hives! I've know idea about how effective it might bee but still a fascinating sight in a way!

Fixed.

Exalted just because of the pun

Although the idea of exterminatus in the state of Washington is a funny thought to an extend... Better ask the inhabitants if they want to be the first registered live exterminatus before anything!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 gorgon wrote:
Unknowingly dug into a yellowjacket nest once. That was fun.

Picked up a shovelful of mulch and dirt, turned around to throw it in the wheelbarrow...and sensed something was wrong. Turned around as if doing a slow motion WTF to see a yellowjacket tornado right in front of me. I dug straight into and exposed a nest. Yay me!

I ran. And then ran some more. Those things follow you farther than honeybees and such. Really aggressive suckers. Only got one sting (woo!), although there were more stinging the hell out of my jacket. They can sting multiple times, so they just let loose on you.

After regrouping and gathering a few cans of spray (stuff that linemen use that shoots 15-20 feet and instant kills), they were no more. Better living through chemistry.

By yellowjackets do you mean european hornets or tinier wasps? Otherwise I didn't know that hornets try to catch people that far away.

Its what people in north america call wasps usually. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellowjacket

Specifically it refers to the species that are yellow and black in color. Usually ground dwelling and aggressive. Some of the species are european in origin, having established themselves in NA.

Thanks for the links, yeah wasps are aggressuve and will pursue you over to, in the worst instances, a kilometer. Once my mother rode the lawnmawer over a wasp nest, she ran into our house but a few found their way through an open window nearby to sting her... Really aggressive buggers indeed...

As someone who's lived among these little hell-fethers for a while, I thought I'd share some info!

IDK what wasps/yellowjackets are like in the States (I reckon the further south you are, the meaner the local fauna is anyway, if you're a Texan, these might not come as too much of a surprise), but the wasps we have in Europe are NOTHING compared to these hornets. I used to have wasps accidentally fly into my room when I was a teenager all the time. In the end, I just used to lift them out bare-handed. Their reputation as mean is really not well-deserved in my opinion. They're fast, yeah, and if you rile them, they get a bit fighty, and don't just die like bees, but if you're gentle, and leave them be, mostly they don't have time for humans, unless you're having a picnic or something, and then, like it's annoying, but outdoors is their space too. Share some of that cornetto you cheap bastard.

Asian Hornets on the other hand?

Big.

I've seen 'em as long as my middle finger, easily. They are significantly larger than any invertebrate I've ever seen in Europe. I don't know any other invertebrate that could tangle with them, either.
They're fast, and they're pretty aggressive. If you're close to one, you'll probably know, because it'll buzz you. They fly in at you low and close, and they're pretty loud. They aren't like bugs in my country, that only hurt you if you've pissed them off, or are only after a sip of your blood. Hornets will actively pursue you even if you've not bothered them anymore than just being unfortunate enough to come within a few meters of them.
On top of that, as you all seem aware, they can kill. Usually, it'll take a few stings, but you can always be unlucky. There can always be a second hornet you haven't seen. In Korea, every year for Chuseok, people visit their relatives' graves, which are more often than not, up in the wooded mountains. Unfortunately, this coincides with the time of year hornets get sleepy and start nesting for the winter. You always here a few stories around this time of older women accidentally disturbing a nest, or even a single hornet and getting killed.

TLDR; Hornets are really fething mean, and a literal world apart from the cute lil bugs you have in Europe, do not tangle with them, avoid at all costs they wil wreck your gak.

Big thanks for sharing your experience man!

Would you say that the smaller sized, regular asian hornet is as well more aggressive than its european counterpart? In France there is an hypothesis that they also became that aggressive because of the lack of actual predators, or that they may just be a fighty specie, anyhow apart from disturbing the local fauna they are also much mire aggressive than "cute" european hornets.

 posermcbogus wrote:
. In Korea, every year for Chuseok, people visit their relatives' graves, which are more often than not, up in the wooded mountains. Unfortunately, this coincides with the time of year hornets get sleepy and start nesting for the winter. You always here a few stories around this time of older women accidentally disturbing a nest, or even a single hornet and getting killed.

IME, yellowjackets get extra aggressive in the fall when the weather starts to turn cold. They can act a lot like a drunk guy at a bar looking for a fight. Which sounds funny, but it's really the best way to describe it. They get in your face, follow you around, won't leave you alone...not necessarily stinging you at first, but more like daring you to do something. Might be the same for your variety there.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Moral of the story: Gorgon had 12" flamer weapons before Admech

With the bionic legs of a Ruststalker!

"Gorgon has whee-ls! Clap-clap-clapclap-clap! Gorgon has whee-ls!"

 gorgon wrote:

 posermcbogus wrote:
. In Korea, every year for Chuseok, people visit their relatives' graves, which are more often than not, up in the wooded mountains. Unfortunately, this coincides with the time of year hornets get sleepy and start nesting for the winter. You always here a few stories around this time of older women accidentally disturbing a nest, or even a single hornet and getting killed.

IME, yellowjackets get extra aggressive in the fall when the weather starts to turn cold. They can act a lot like a drunk guy at a bar looking for a fight. Which sounds funny, but it's really the best way to describe it. They get in your face, follow you around, won't leave you alone...not necessarily stinging you at first, but more like daring you to do something. Might be the same for your variety there.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Moral of the story: Gorgon had 12" flamer weapons before Admech

With the bionic legs of a Ruststalker!

"Gorgon has whee-ls! Clap-clap-clapclap-clap! Gorgon has whee-ls!"

That's funny, I'd swear I've always seen wasp populations go very quiet from roughly mid-september onwards. Can't seem to remeber when their queens are supposed to go into hibernation though.

That's because you're used to lazy, socialist insects in Europe.

I kid, I kid.

Seriously, it's a thing. Google it and I'm sure it'll come up. Think it's about a shortage of resources that makes them squirrelly.

Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:Big thanks for sharing your experience man!

Would you say that the smaller sized, regular asian hornet is as well more aggressive than its european counterpart? In France there is an hypothesis that they also became that aggressive because of the lack of actual predators, or that they may just be a fighty specie, anyhow apart from disturbing the local fauna they are also much mire aggressive than "cute" european hornets.

Errm, can't say I've really encountered smaller hornets than the big ones out here, tbh. There are plenty of predators for the smaller version - we get these big green spiders "Trichonephila clavata" says wikipedia, that are kind of exciting.
Generally, because most of Japan gets quite tropical is summer, it provides a climate that seems suitable for sustaining much larger insects. I'd imagine with the so-called Murder Hornets, the aggression is probably something inherent - they're probably the insect equivalent of an apex predator, and on top of that, any potential predators would be put off by how aggressive they are. The only thing in Japan I can think of that might mess with a hornet is a bear, and Japanese bears just kind of lurk in the forest and are scared of people as far as I know. I think they'd leave hornets well alone.

gorgon wrote:

 posermcbogus wrote:
. In Korea, every year for Chuseok, people visit their relatives' graves, which are more often than not, up in the wooded mountains. Unfortunately, this coincides with the time of year hornets get sleepy and start nesting for the winter. You always here a few stories around this time of older women accidentally disturbing a nest, or even a single hornet and getting killed.

IME, yellowjackets get extra aggressive in the fall when the weather starts to turn cold. They can act a lot like a drunk guy at a bar looking for a fight. Which sounds funny, but it's really the best way to describe it. They get in your face, follow you around, won't leave you alone...not necessarily stinging you at first, but more like daring you to do something. Might be the same for your variety there.

Fun fact! Most of the wasps in the UK doing that, around that time of year actually are drunk - their foraging works in patterns depending on the time of year. I only really half-remember this from my grandpa who keeps bees, but when the hive is breeding, they'll usually go for meat and other protein-rich stuff, and then in the fall they'll look for sugars, like fallen fruit. Fallen fruit often ferments, and thus, you get...

...drunk wasps. Where I grew up, it usually means they get sleepy, or too lazy to fly, and chill out on the ground.

I think the season certainly plays a part in how aggressive Murder Hornets will be - in the autumn, they're probably much closer to their nests, preparing for the often very cold and snowy Japanese winter, but they may also be agitated and stressed due to the temperature becoming lower, making them much more fight-or-flight-y. They are also just year round beligerant little bastards, but perhaps they are deliberately more concertedly killy in the fall.

Never considered fermented fruits actually causing wasps to get drunk, that's hilarious. i'd day that in north east France as far as I remember act lazy rather than aggressive.

The giant hornets are litterally what you call a super predator (the expression at least works in french), that's to say they're a the top of the chain, attacking all but being prey to nobody or almost. In the case of the USA, litteraly nobody since the local fauna only discovers them...

Well, there are happy drunks and angry drunks.

Personally, I'm of the opinion that yellowjackets are born mean.

 gorgon wrote:
Well, there are happy drunks and angry drunks.

Personally, I'm of the opinion that yellowjackets are born mean.

Isn't that the truth.