Washington researchers find, destroy murder hornet nest with 200 queens inside

SEATTLE — New video out of Washington state shows researchers destroying a murder hornet nest.

The bugs are the largest hornets in the world and can grow up to 2-inches long.

“It really seems like we got there just in the nick of time,” said Washington Department of Agriculture Entomologist Sven-Erik Spichiger.

Spichiger and the other scientists cut into the Asian Giant Hornet’s nest in a tree. They took a section of it back to cold storage where they opened it up. Using chopsticks, they picked through the next and found 76 queens still alive.

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“Everything we found alive inside the next, which would make sense had likely emerged between the time we did the eradication and the time we did our examination,” Spichiger said.

The nest had the ability to produce about 200 queens. About 108 of them were still in their cells in the nest. The other 76, plus three more, were found when they took down the tree. They were put on ice to be studied.

“There’s no way for us to ever be certain whether or not we got them all,” Spichiger said.

If scientists had not found and eradicated the nest when they did, they could be looking at the possibility of 200 more nests. Researchers still believe there are at least three nests south of Vancouver and they will keep trying to find them. The colder weather, however, is making it harder for the hornets to fly around.

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