Japanese Giant Hornets

I guess I could have called this blog post "Something I Wish I Knew Before Getting Into Beekeeping", because, wow - I think I might have reconsidered.  Have you ever seen a Japanese Giant Hornet? They are huge. No, I don't just mean large I mean HUGE.  These guys are rated one of the "5 most horrifying bugs in the world" - and just in case you don't already know, let me tell you why:

1. It is larger than the size of your thumb and sprays flesh-melting poison. (No, I am not exaggerating.) They aim this poison at your eyes. This wonderful poison has pheromones that will bring every hornet in the hive over to sting you until you die. (again, NO - I am not exaggerating).
2. They can fly 50 miles in a day - so it is not like you can outrun it.
3. An adult hornet will fly miles to find food. I have learned that it's favorite food is a hive inhabited by thousands of bees. A hornet that finds a hive will spray the hive with some acid to call in its fellow hornets. They then descend upon the beehive like an unholy plague of hell-born death engines and the bees do not stand a chance.
4. They are all over my bee yard.

These things give me nightmares. I am not even kidding.  I wake up covered in sweat, shaking, after a dream about these things.  And, just in case you were wondering - no - the above picture is not one that I took myself - there is no way on earth I would let one of these things touch me.

Check out this video from BBC about just 30 of these hornets killing off a hive of 30,000 bees.



I swear whenever I see one of these things in my yard it takes everything I have not to scoop up my children and run for cover while screaming my head off.  Instead I just bravely wait until it lands and hack it in half with a shovel (secretly hoping that no other hornets were watching and are now going back for reinforcements).