Researchers Could Lure Murder Hornets to Their Deaths with Sex
DannyB writes:
Researchers Could Lure Murder Hornets to Their Deaths with Sex
Birds do it, bees do it-even the wasps that kill bees do it. A clever team of scientists now has an idea to use the Asian giant hornets' horniness against them, in hopes of stopping the invasive species from decimating U.S. bee populations. They've identified the sex pheromones of the queen and propose trapping the hornet drones that are lured in by the pheromones.
The Asian giant hornet (Vespa mandarinia) preys on bees, and its stings are pretty painful to humans (they can kill people who are allergic to their venom). The hornets are native to Asia but have recently spread into the U.S.; they were first caught in Washington State in August 2020, and since then, they've spread across the American northwest. This invasion is worrying, since the hornets can slaughter a honeybee hive in a matter of hours.
Recently, a team of entomologists caught a bunch of virgin giant hornet queens and their drones from colonies in Yunnan, China. They swabbed the queens' sex glands and used gas chromatography-mass spectrometry to identify pheromone compounds from six of the queens. The team's findings were published today in Current Biology.
"We were able to isolate the major components of the female sex pheromone, a odor blend that is highly attractive to males who compete to mate with virgin queens,"
This may be an effective way to eradicate an invasive foreign bee species. As long as the hornet males can't stop pollen in love with the queen.
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