Welcome to Thunderdome

In his decades of beekeeping, Ted McFall had never seen anything like it.

As he pulled his truck up to check on a group of hives near Custer, Washington, in November, he could spot from the window a mess of bee carcasses on the ground. As he looked closer, he saw a pile of dead members of the colony in front of a hive and more carnage inside — thousands and thousands of bees with their heads torn from their bodies and no sign of a culprit.

“I couldn’t wrap my head around what could have done that,” McFall said.

Only later did he come to suspect that the killer was what some researchers simply call the “murder hornet.”

With queens that can grow to 2 inches long, Asian giant hornets can use mandibles shaped like spiked shark fins to wipe out a honeybee hive in a matter of hours, decapitating the bees and flying away with the thoraxes to feed their young. For larger targets, the hornet’s potent venom and stinger — long enough to puncture a beekeeping suit — make for an excruciating combination that victims have likened to hot metal driving into their skin.

In Japan, the hornets kill up to 50 people a year. Now, for the first time, they have arrived in the United States.

Cakedaddy wrote: I say we nuke Asia. From Carp, to Viruses, to murdering hornets. Doesn't ANYthing come out of there that isn't trying to end humanity and take over the world? How many more acts of aggression do we tolerate?

The bees vibrate their flying muscles that creates temperatures up to 116 degrees Fahrenheit. Within 30 minutes to one hour, the hornets are cooked to death.