Giant Murder Hornets Are Here! Thanks 2020!

BLAINE, Wash. — 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, Wash., 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,” Mr. 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 the size of a matchbox, 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.

Finally, some good news in 2020! Australia basically burned down, there were floods and landslides in Indonesia and Brazil, an earthquake in Puerto Rico, locusts swarmed across South Africa, Kobe was killed, Harry and Meghan quit the royal family, the Houston Astros are cheaters, and the damn CORONA19 has us all ready to punch a toddler. But hey, at least we have giant cannabalistic decapitating Murder Hornets with stingers that can pierce a goddamn suit of armor and make you feel like hot metal is driving into your skin, huh? Good times! On a related note, 2020 can go straight to hell.