Search is on for 'murder hornet' believed to have buzzed over Canada-U.S. border

Vancouver -

Provincial insect specialists with B.C.'s agriculture ministry have been hunting for an Asian giant hornet, also known as a murder hornet, believed to have flown across the border from a colony in Blaine, Wash.

The insect in question, along with a handful of others, was caught and tagged by Washington agriculture officials hoping to track it back to the nest.

“They managed to tag one of those hornets and this lovely lady flew across the line into Canada,” said Paul van Westendorp, B.C.’s top apiculturist. “And so, that’s why we have been rummaging around in that particular habitat where we think a nest could be placed.”

Van Westendorp’s team has focused their efforts along Zero Avenue between 216 Street and 230 Street in Langley but so far have found no sign of the insect which has a radio tracker attached to it.

“We do not know what happened to it. Our Washington state friends were very kind and they provided us with some monitoring equipment,” he said. “And we walked through the shrubs and the bushes and the blackberries and everything else under the sun but there was no signal recorded.”

The Asian giant hornet is an invasive species about five times the size of a honey bee with a stinger about half a centimetre long.

If a human were to encounter a swarm of them and be stung repeatedly, the encounter could be deadly.

But native bee and wasp populations are most at threat from the Asian giant hornet.

“If those wasp populations are going to be impacted by this bully, called the Asian giant hornet, we are going to have ecological disruption. And that is something we just do not want to happen,” said van Westendorp.

In Washington State, officials did manage to track one of the tagged hornets back to a nest in Blaine, just a couple hundred metres from the international boundary.

On Wednesday, a crew dressed in protective gear used a vacuum to suck up the insects and retrieve nine layers of comb containing larvae that would have grown into more adult Asian giant hornets.

In all, the live hornets captured and the larvae totalled about 1500 specimens.

“A few of us who were working very tight in the area were approached by the hornets and they did actually attempt to sting us this time,” said Sven Spichiger of the Washington State Department of Agriculture. “But we are all very happy to say that our hornet suits worked very well and no injuries were sustained.”

With that nest out of the way, the search continues for the wayward hornet believed to have flown across the border.

“We encourage the public, and bee keepers, and border patrol folks, and the RCMP, and everybody else to have their eyes open, and to help us to locate any of these giant Asian hornet activities,” said van Westendorp.

Anyone who believes they may have seen an Asian giant hornet is asked to contact the Invasive Species Council of British Columbia.