[HN Gopher] Asia's 'murder hornet' will arrive on East Coast, ar...
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Asia's 'murder hornet' will arrive on East Coast, are 'here to
stay' experts say
Author : nickgrosvenor
Score : 27 points
Date : 2020-05-03 21:57 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (nypost.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (nypost.com)
| Noumenon72 wrote:
| We have a lot of unemployed people right now who could be helping
| wipe these guys out.
|
| > Planakis said that in China, they have hornet hunters.
|
| > "There's a tracker, and what they do is they set up a water
| source, and they wait there, like a deer hunter would," he said.
|
| > "As soon as they see the hornet coming to the water source to
| drink, the guy jumps out with a net, and he grabs it. Then, ever
| so carefully, he ties a strong on it and lets it go.
|
| > "There's a spotter watching it now with binoculars, and he
| watches this thing as it flies, because obviously it's going to
| fly back to the nest. When they find it, they mark where the nest
| is.
|
| > "And at night they come back and with a flame-thrower, pretty
| much go at it, just follow them back to their base camp, and when
| they least expect it, boom, go after them."
|
| It's outdoors, it's socially distanced, it's the perfect job for
| the Covid-19 economy.
| gmuslera wrote:
| The next big scare? Why would someone bring to the US a colony of
| them (or a number big enough to make one)?
|
| Anyway, I can't stop thinking on P.K.Dick's Meddler, but with
| hornets instead of blue butterflies. Try to avoid bringing them
| from the future.
| snarfy wrote:
| > "The worst thing anyone can do with these things is kill them,"
| he said. "That scent is going to be airborne, and the rest of the
| hive will come.
|
| Sounds like good bait for a hornet trap.
| varenc wrote:
| Wikipedia link:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_giant_hornet
|
| Some fun quotes:
|
| "Fatalities from envenomation are primarily related to
| anaphylactic shock or cardiac arrest."
|
| "Those who died, on average, were stung 59 times (with a standard
| deviation of 12)"
|
| "Only a few hornets (under 50) can exterminate a colony of tens
| of thousands of bees in a few hours"
|
| " European honey bees have no innate defense against the hornets,
| which can rapidly destroy their colonies."
|
| And the wasps are also a dubious nutritional supplement.
| riffraff wrote:
| > Planakis said that inside their venom "is a pheromone, which is
| like a magnet to other hornets." > "So you can get swarmed just
| from getting stung by one." > "The worst thing anyone can do with
| these things is kill them," he said. "That scent is going to be
| airborne, and the rest of the hive will come.
|
| Isn't this true for all kinds of wasps/hornets?
| exhilaration wrote:
| The NYTimes did a story on these hornets one day before the Post
| ran this story: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/02/us/asian-
| giant-hornet-was...
|
| There's a second story today about how Japanese honey bees swarm
| these hornets, raise the temperature, and cook them alive:
| https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/03/us/murder-hornets-asian-g...
| There's a cool video to go along: https://youtu.be/awoV5Wj9Iys
| detaro wrote:
| Two recent discussions of articles about those hornets:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23057159
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22826773
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(page generated 2020-05-03 23:00 UTC)