Second murder hornet nest of the year eradicated and a third nest located

By Jenn Selva, CNN

The second “murder hornet” nest of the year has been eradicated in Washington state, and the year’s third nest has been located in the same area, according to a tweet from the Washington State Department of Agriculture (WSDA).

The first Asian giant hornet’s nest of the year was eradicated late last month in rural Whatcom County. That nest consisted of nine layers of comb and had almost 1,500 hornets in various stages of development, the WSDA said then. Staff vacuumed 113 worker hornets from the nest in addition to catching 67 additional hornets with nets in the area.

According to the WSDA website, they will continue to trap Asian giant hornets through the end of November.

Asian giant hornets are the world’s largest hornets and were first detected in the United States in 2019. The WDSA is working with local, state, and federal partners to prevent them from establishing in the US.

The hornets earned the “murder hornet” nickname because they enter a “slaughter phase,” where they kill bees by decapitating them, according to officials. They natively live in a region from northern India to East Asia. They prey on honeybees and other insects and some hornets can destroy a hive in just a few hours, the WSDA said.

The hornet is considered invasive in the United States and was first reported in the Vancouver Island area of Canada in August 2019 and has since been detected in the far northwest corner of Washington state, according to the USDA.

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CNN’s Lauren M. Johnson contributed to this report.