The Asian giant hornet, first confirmed in Washington State in 2019, delivers a sting so concentrated that around 50 people die annually in Japan from the venom, and a single nest can dismember 30,000 honeybees in a few hours, decapitating them to feed their thoraxes to hornet larvae.

The Asian giant hornet, first confirmed in Washington State in 2019, delivers a sting so concentrated that around 50 people die annually in Japan from the venom, and a single nest can dismember 30,000 honeybees in a few hours, decapitating them to feed their thoraxes to hornet larvae.

The Asian giant hornet, Vespa mandarinia, arrived in Washington State in December 2019 when a dead specimen turned up in Blaine, near the Canadian border, and within two years Washington State Department of Agriculture crews were vacuuming a nest of nearly 1,500 hornets out of a tree in Whatcom County. The hornet measures up to two inches long, carries a quarter-inch stinger that can punch through a standard beekeeping suit, and kills roughly 50…