USDA Is Fighting Against Vespa Mandarinia

To solve that difficult problem, entomologists at the Washington State Department of Agriculture (WSDA) came up with a plan to capture a live hornet by attaching a tractable radio transmitter to it and turning it into a spy leading the way...

WSDA researchers worked with their UADA colleagues to complete the plan. They had previously managed to use a similar radio transmitter to study the movement of spotted lantern bugs.

After numerous failures, the “hornet terminator” completed the task at the end of October.

Radio signals led the team to a dead tree, WSDA management entomologist Sven-Erik Spichiger noticed vespa mandarinia come in and out through a few feet-long cracks in the trunk.

They vacuumed 85 hornets and netted 13 more.

"I am confident that as long as we catch the live hornets, we can track down their nest, which does provide a good tool for our overall extermination plan." Spichiger said.

But this is not the end of the story. A few days after the nest was eliminated, the team cut open part of the trunk and found two queen hornets, as well as other workers, larvae and pupae.

Although the battle was a great victory for entomologists, the team also pointed out that the battle to contain the Asian giant hornets may happen repeatedly over a few years, because we still don't know how many nests there are outside and how these insects came to the American continent.

"We are concerned that the beehives of large bees may be completely powerless against invasive species and that their colonies may grow larger as vespa mandarinia moves south where the weather is warm," WSDA entomologist Chris Looney told the Guardian." Our goal is to prevent the aforementioned problem from arising."