Giant Asian Hornets. (coming to America?)

reply to post by tweetybird0428


Pretty sure I saw one of these a couple a days ago.

In the pic - remember - that’s a full sized daisy - bigger than a 50 cent piece.


And this thing was NASTY! That’s why I’ve only got the one pic! Sounded like a freakin’ B52 buzzing after me and I’m not so proud to say that I RAN!

I’ve not seen them before here in Sicily and hope to never see one again - and I’m an insect/animal enthusiast.

So - who knows if they’re headed from Asia west or not - but it seems so!

peace

reply to post by tweetybird0428


I'm in Kentucky and I want to say that these have been here for as long as I can remember, but are quickly becoming more numerous... however, I'm not positive what I've seen here my whole life is the same as the Asian hornets, although they do look identical.

The ones I see here only come out at the end of summer and are usually found on rotting fruit that has fallen off trees and collected on the ground. Also, they tend to come out at night and buzz around porch lights, which I've never seen other wasps or hornets do before. This year, there was a whole nest of them in a hollow tree in our yard and as soon as the porch lights came on, they would swarm to them, which made entering or exiting the house absolutely terrifying! It was nearly impossible to get in or out without at least one of these monstrosities flying inside and buzzing around the ceiling fan, which led to the whole family going berserk. We ended up putting out a bug zapper light... had to modify it, because the damn things were too big to crawl through the grid on the outside of the light. We killed hundreds of them.

I've never known of anyone to get stung by one but I did see the stingers of some dead ones and they were HUGE! I've seen them attack other bugs, bees and such... cicadas mostly. We always called them wood hornets or wood wasps, so maybe they really aren't the same thing and just look similar. I hate them, whatever they are. I had one crawling on my foot about a month ago and almost lost it, lol. I'm glad we managed to get rid of most of the ones that were around the house.

reply to post by tweetybird0428


Oh ya those are some pretty big bugs for sure. I seen these before, though in vids and pictures mostly, but have not seen any around my neck of the woods though. In the link it says those are queens which are usually twice or more larger then the average drone hornet, but still and even if that person has really small hands those are some huge hornets. The only other thought that came to my head when looking at those pictures was---"wonder if they would taste good dipped in chocolate"

Though there sting is quite dangerous, and according to this link is strong enough to dissolve human tissue and plausibly cause kidney failure, or at least it seems if your being attracted by a bunch or a hive of them it will kill you, not sure about a lone one.

And it seems at least in china there really having problems with these wasps, check out that vid those are some pretty big holes in the dude's arm. Most bee stings you would have to really look to see a hole, but those things look like title stab wounds, or like he got stung by a really really huge syringe over and over. There stinger would go straight through clothes it says, or at least casual daily clothes. Though in the vid the first guy says he saved himself by covering himself with a blanket, though for those queen's judging by the size of those stingers you would need a pretty thick blanket to not be affected.

hornets in china