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Tracking the 'Murder Hornet': A Deadly Pest Has Reached North America:
In his decades of beekeeping, Ted McFall had never seen anything like it.
As he pulled his truck up to check on a group of hives near Custer, Wash., in November, he could spot from the window a mess of bee carcasses on the ground. As he looked closer, he saw a pile of dead members of the colony in front of a hive and more carnage inside — thousands and thousands of bees with their heads torn from their bodies and no sign of a culprit.
"I couldn't wrap my head around what could have done that," Mr. McFall said.
Only later did he come to suspect that the killer was what some researchers simply call the "murder hornet."
With queens that can grow to two inches long, Asian giant hornets can use mandibles shaped like spiked shark fins to wipe out a honeybee hive in a matter of hours, decapitating the bees and flying away with the thoraxes to feed their young. For larger targets, the hornet's potent venom and stinger — long enough to puncture a beekeeping suit — make for an excruciating combination that victims have likened to hot metal driving into their skin.
In Japan, the hornets kill up to 50 people a year. Now, for the first time, they have arrived in the United States.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday May 03 2020, @05:52PM (1 child)
My first sting came from the gate post, at night. Then about a year later one was hiding in the garbage can lid when I went to lift it. There were a couple of others that I don't remember as specifically, but, finally, one hit me in the daytime and I'm 99% sure it was a member of a small colony of solid black ants that was living in some mulch that I was pulling weeds from. They're not the most common ants in the yard. The sting description matches "Twig Ants" but the body coloration doesn't (unless a twig ant was just mixed in with those other ants... it's not like I picked up a black ant to be stung again just to be sure...)
Every time I get hit it's super intense, jump backwards and shake your hand vigorously kind of pain, followed by a sort of shock-like "oh, that's not so bad" and then a numb/dull ache for about a day. My numb areas don't usually expand more than about 2cm from the sting site.
I'm pretty shocked at how quickly the description of ants has changed in Google searches, last time I pretty quickly came up with two or three articles describing bullet ant invasions in North Florida, I guess that's the sort of thing you might want to suppress if it's not exactly true (or even if it is...)
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 05 2020, @05:42AM
Insert Viagra joke here