Crews Vacuum 'Murder Hornets' Out of Washington Nest
upstart writes in with an IRC submission for nutherguy_:
Crews vacuum 'murder hornets' out of Washington nest:
The state Agriculture Department had spent weeks searching, trapping and using dental floss to tie tracking devices to Asian giant hornets, which can deliver painful stings to people and spit venom but are the biggest threat to honeybees that farmers depend on to pollinate crops.
The nest found in the city of Blaine near the Canadian border is about the size of a basketball and contained an estimated 100 to 200 hornets, according to scientists who announced the find Friday.
Crews wearing thick protective suits vacuumed the invasive insects from the cavity of a tree into large canisters Saturday. The suits prevent the hornets' 6-millimeter-long stingers from hurting workers, who also wore face shields because the trapped hornets can spit a painful venom into their eyes.
[...] The nest was found after the state Agriculture Department trapped some hornets this week and used dental floss to attach radio trackers to some of them.
Read more of this story at SoylentNews.