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[water sloshing]
Ted mcfall (voiceover): It's tough to look
At anything in creation and say, oh,
Yeah, that is an evil creature.
However, something in god's plan is not correct in this matter.
Whenever we find them, we have to kill them.
We cannot tolerate or risk having more of them around.
This creature must be eradicated.
If we fail at this, and it spreads,
Then you can expect catastrophic problems with the honeybees.
[music playing]
One of my favorite screen movies is the movie "the exorcist."
If you watch that movie, you'll hear
The bees buzzing at the very beginning of the movie.
And it's supposed to be a scary, intimidating kind of a noise.
But whenever I hear that sound, I think of something very nice
And something very pleasant.
As a little boy, I didn't really understand
The importance of honeybees.
I just knew that my family needed the honeybees.
And my dad did everything he could
To take care of honeybees.
And in elementary school, there was a big field of clover.
And there were always bees pollinating
That big field of clover.
And some of the other kids would run around that clover field,
And stomp on the bees, and kill the honeybees.
I remember thinking, I wonder if that's my family's bees.
I wonder if those are the bees that make us honey.
Because even then, I had a certain connection to the hives
That we had and the creatures that we
Were entrusted to take care of.
A good beekeeper always has to be aware of what's
Going on with their hives.
Because you never know if a tree is going to fall on a hive,
Or if a lightning bolt's going to hit it,
Or some vandal's going to get to the hive.
And I just went to go do a regular inspection
Just to make sure that everything
Was ready for a long winter.
As I approached the hive, I look down,
And there were thousands of bees that had been slaughtered.
I was just praying to god that once
I opened the hive, that I would find the queen still alive.
But as soon as I open up that lid, and I peered in,
All hope was gone at that point.
60,000 of my honeybees had their heads chopped off.
It's kind of like finding a family pet, or maybe even
A family member that got killed, and you have no idea who did,
Or what did it, or what the heck happened.
You just get that bad feeling in the pit of your stomach
That something terrible has happened.
I called my wife dorothy, and I was like, hey, dorothy,
You're not going to believe this.
We just lost a whole colony.
And she said, what?
What happened?
The first thing that anyone says whenever something bad happens
Is, well, what happened?
If someone dies-- oh, what happened?
Or if someone breaks an arm-- what happened?
Well, that's exactly what she said.
What happened?
I'm juggling kids, and then hearing this.
And at the time, I was pregnant.
So it was stressful.
It was a stressful call.
She could not believe it.
Her jaw was dropped.
And I'll never forget.
She took her hand, and she kind of
Raked it through the bee bodies, just looking at it, real quiet.
And actually, I shouldn't get choked up about silly bees.
Well, I guess to us, it's not silly bees, right?
Hang on a second.
Had to compose myself.
If I had a chalk, and you did the little outline of a scene,
You could easily do it around our bees.
And it's a murder scene.
I had a lot of theories in my mind.
I thought maybe someone came in, and gassed my bees,
And then decided to cut their heads off, some satanic cult.
At that point, who knows?
When something mysterious happens,
Anything is a possibility at that point.
It's just a helpless feeling.
Because I know how to take care of my bees.
I know how to keep my bees strong, healthy.
And I take care of my bees, and my bees
Take care of our family.
And that's what I do.
Come on, conrad.
Come on.
Good boy.
It was just a regular morning, like any other,
Taking the dog out for a walk.
I looked down, and I spotted a hornet
Laying here on the concrete.
It was the biggest hornet I'd ever seen in my entire life.
It had its stinger sticking out, and it was a big stinger.
I grabbed my phone and took a few pictures.
My wife recommended that I posted him on reddit,
So I found this subreddit--
What'sthisbug.
Not long after that, I got a reply saying,
You should save the wasp and report it
To your local department of agriculture and the washington
Invasive species council.
Jessica labelle: In December of last year,
A local resident noticed a dead, large, upsetting-looking insect
Outside his home.
It was reported to washington invasive species council,
Who then moved it over to us.
Sven went out to investigate and confirmed that it was
Indeed an asian giant hornet.
[shutter clicking]
It was actually shocking.
It looked like a child's toy because they're
So much larger than the other hornets that we deal with.
My heart sank, because I was like, crap,
That's not a yellowjacket.
I knew zero-- zero--
About giant hornets before last December.
Sven-erik spichiger: We'd spent the entire holidays of 2019
Reading research paper after research paper,
Regarding its behaviors, if it has any weaknesses.
Turns out, it really doesn't.
It's an apex predator, and nothing really bothers it.
We knew it was a big deal just because of how it can prey
On managed honeybee hives and how detrimental that
Would be for our agriculture.
And we sent out pest alerts on asian giant hornet
To everyone who keeps bees in washington.
And that's when the mcfall bee kill came to our attention too.
What happened to ted mcfall is what we
Worry about for all beekeepers.
Teddy lives about six miles from me.
And so I was extremely concerned that,
Yes, they are in my backyard.
And I don't think it's ok to say, let
Somebody else take care of it.
Ruthie danielsen, she's a beekeeper,
And she contacted us early on and said,
I am setting up an asian giant hornet task force.
Washington state department of agriculture pest program
Is a couple entomologists.
And this year is the year of covid.
So funding for these programs is extremely lean.
And it's really hard to work with a government agency.
There's liabilities, and there's usually so
Many regulations that say no.
And so what can I do, personally,
So that I can feel good that I did everything
I could to protect my bees and protect,
Actually, north america?
I am fascinated by insects.
There's this tiny part of our world
That can have outsized impacts.
Here's a little invasive species showing up for the first time.
And as you start doing the reporting to figure out where
The impact is, and you're like, oh, wow,
Here's someone that lost a whole colony of bees.
And there was a bit of a mystery to the whole thing.
And then as I was reporting this story,
I kept coming across these various nicknames,
A whole bunch of nicknames.
And the one that really stood out to me
Was the yak killer hornet.
Where did that come from?
Did one of these hornets kill some famous yak
Somewhere along the way?
I was just trying to track that down
And contacted this researcher in japan who had worked
With these hornets a lot.
And I was asking, like, do you know where
This yak killer name came from?
And he came back with, actually, I haven't even
Heard that nickname.
Around here, they just call it the murder hornet.
Ok, well, that's-- I guess we can just go with that nickname.
Reporter: "the new york times" reports
Deadly hornets in parts of the us,
And they're called murder hornets.
As if we needed more to worry about than the threat
Of the deadly disease that has gripped the world,
Now there is more fodder for people's nightmares.
Reporter: It looks like something out of a horror film,
With a name to match--
The murder hornet.
It comes straight out of hollywood
In terms of what you think an evil alien might look like.
They are, in fact, the largest species of wasp on the planet.
And its sting is strong enough to kill a human.
Reporter: Some describe the sting as feeling like hot metal
Inside their skin.
Their jaw can actually take a chunk
Of flesh out of the human body.
Reporter: They can kill people and wipe
Out entire honeybee colonies.
Reporter: 60,000 honeybees torn apart in a savage attack.
There were dead bees all over the front of the hive,
All over the bottom board.
And they all had been chopped to bits.
Reporter: They rip their heads off
And take the thorax for food.
I know nature is violent, but that's like horror movie
Violent.
The pollination that honeybees do for our food
Supply cannot be understated.
Reporter: Washington state entomologist chris looney
Says the clock is ticking.
The goal is to eradicate it now while the population
Is presumably small.
It's a bit of a race for us to find them, and find their nest,
And destroy them before they destroy our honeybees.
If this were to become well-established
And then start spreading, it could be pretty catastrophic.
Reporter: If he and his colleagues
Can't wipe out the invaders this summer,
They're likely to multiply and spread
Across the country with potentially
Disastrous consequences.
Reporter: The big concern that these hornets
Could wipe out the population, which is already under siege--
Reporter: --Because they kill massive amounts of honeybees--
[interposing voices]
Albert einstein said that if bees get wiped out,
Then humanity will be wiped out four years after that.
And I'm glad that albert einstein understood very
Clearly the bee's role in pollination,
Because that pollen is really the dust of life.
Early on, before this whole asian giant hornet
Problem hit the media, sven showed up to one
Of our bee club meetings.
This was shortly before the whole pandemic started.
We're looking at each other, saying, hey, what are we
Going to do about this problem?
Because if this thing gets out and starts slaughtering more
Colonies, then everyone's going to be like, hey,
Why didn't we do something at the beginning?
Asian giant hornet's been on my radar since 2013.
In 2013, conditions in southern china
Led to the deaths of 42 people.
Those who did survive are on dialysis for the rest
Of their life, in wheelchairs.
If you get more than one or two stings,
It starts to get serious.
If you get 10 or 12, it becomes life-threatening.
Before you know what's even happening,
You could be in a real serious world of hurt.
So it's one of the secondary reasons
Why we just don't want this to get
Established here permanently.
The chance to eradicate is very rare,
That humans will win a battle against
An invasive introduction.
And you have no idea what the environmental impact
Of adding something else to the ecological system
Is going to have.
Ruthie danielsen: The west coast of the united states
Is perfect habitat for the asian giant hornet.
So that's why it is so important that we
Stop the asian giant hornet from moving any further south.
We're the first line of defense here.
Ted mcfall: We started coming up with ideas for, hey,
Maybe we can figure out a way to eradicate them.
Because we thought that it was going to be pretty much
Us on our own.
We knew that sven and the department of agriculture
Were going to try to help us in some degree,
We weren't sure what.
My hope is it's not too late.
Right now, the murder hornet is only here
In the pacific northwest, in this area somewhere.
The goal is to find the nest.
But finding an asian giant hornet nest
Is difficult at best.
Ted mcfall: No one really knows how bad this murder
Hornet situation could be.
Could it throw the entire world into the pangs of poverty?
It's possible.
The fact that they got here shows that there
Is something terribly wrong.
And the only way to make right is
To kill the asian giant hornet that seeks
Out to destroy these honeybees.
And I tell you what, if we're unsuccessful getting rid
Of this murder hornet, god help us all.
Chris looney: I have always been the kind of entomologist
That catches insects.
I don't have a collection.
I have no qualms about killing insects.
But if I'm not contributing to new knowledge,
It's just not really my gig to catch bugs.
But I like to do it when there's a reason.
I have looked for some insects that I really wanted to find,
But nothing like this, where the stakes were high,
The people were watching.
My entire professional life was wrapped around it.
Short of being able to follow one, walking around the woods
And looking for one is another pretty decent tool.
It's actually a horrible tool, but we're
Going to do it anyway.
Hornet in a haystack.
If there is anything that influenced me as a kid,
It was not science.
This just happened by accident.
I'm not a good mechanic.
I'm not especially religious, so monk was probably out.
And I have no stories to tell, so no ernest
Hemingway option either.
The nests apparently have these really
Distinctive mounts of soil.
They nest in the ground, often in rodent burrows,
Or exposures made around rotting tree
Roots or exposed tree roots.
So this is sort of ideal and impenetrable habitat.
Let's hope they're not in these blackberries.
Jumping around on the ground in a place where there might be
One of these nests and it's hard to run away
Is probably the stupidest way to look for this insect.
It seems insurmountable right now.
I'm not really--
I'm not feeling that happy.
God, I talk a lot.
Last year, giant hornet come to your country.
[speaking japanese]
Interpreter: Exterminating asian giant hornet
Is a difficult job.
If your protective wear isn't thick enough,
They can penetrate it and sting you.
Giant hornet have this stinger that can also spray venom.
Once, I heard from a hornet exterminator
The venom went through that gap in his goggles
And got into his eyes.
He said the pain was so incredible that he couldn't
Open his eyes for a while.
And if he'd been a little less lucky,
He could have lost his vision completely.
[speaking japanese]
So they don't just attack by stinging.
They can also attack by spraying venom.
Narrator: But how did the asian giant hornet
Get from asia to north america?
The most popular theory begins with a fertilized
Queen looking for a cozy spot to curl up for the winter.
She finds her way into a stack of nestled terracotta
Pots intended for export to north america.
Or perhaps she boards the ship herself,
One of many bringing lumber from the pacific northwest.
Once emptied, the cargo holds are
Littered with bark, twigs, and sawdust,
Perfect for digging a nest.
After an 8,000-mile trip, the ship arrives on the northwest
Coast of north america.
The queen emerges into the sunlight
And flies into the lush forest, ready to start her colony.
Or maybe humans played a more direct role.
Vespa mandarinia is considered a delicacy in certain parts
Of asia, sometimes grilled on skewers
Or steeped in a korean liquor called soju.
Perhaps some unscrupulous entrepreneur
Managed to smuggle a murder hornet starter pack
Through customs, hoping to charge
Premium prices to vancouver's most adventurous diners.
Unfortunately, it was the hornets who decided
To go out for a bite instead.
[gasp]
Or maybe none of this was accidental.
Some conspiracy theorists point out that the murder hornet just
Happened to show up in north america
At a time in which the us is locked in bitter trade wars.
Is it possible that foreign agents deliberately recruited
Vespa mandarinia as a bioweapon and sent them into enemy
Territory to disrupt american agriculture
By massacring honeybees?
Yeah, that's a bit far-fetched.
But in a world as interconnected as ours,
There are so many ways the asian giant
Hornet could have arrived that it practically
Doesn't matter anymore.
It's here now, and there's not much time left to stop it.
The asian giant hornet has evolved in asia.
The honeybees in that part of the world
Actually have a way to protect themselves.
Our honeybees do not have any means of protecting themselves.
[speaking japanese]
Interpreter: When a giant hornet attacks a japanese honeybee,
The bees group together and smother
The hornet in a bee ball.
Using vibrations from their wings,
And their muscles, and their abdomens,
The bees generate heat.
And together, they raise the temperature to 130 degrees
To kill the hornet by cooking it alive.
The only reason this species is in north america
Is because of humans.
As human beings and globalization moved a species
That shouldn't be in north america to north america,
That's just one more horrific impact that we
Can have to our food supply.
So since we created this problem,
We, as humans, should take ownership of trying
To correct this problem.
I don't have the science background, but a lot of times,
People don't like government agencies
To come on their property.
So that's a little sensitive piece.
And so there's no better way to learn than to do it myself.
This is a bottle trap.
The hornet comes in, takes a drink,
And gets caught in the liquid and drowns.
We have to use the rice wine to help
Keep honeybees and other of the good pollinators out of this.
Because honeybees would be attracted to the sugar in here,
And they can get trapped in here and die too.
And the murder hornets, they actually like the taste of rice
Wine and rancid type of tastes.
They're meat eaters, and they don't mind eating nasty things.
This design was given to us from the people in asia.
It's interesting, a couple of the traps
They found the murder hornet still alive,
Swimming around in there.
This particular orange juice actually
Came from the department of agriculture.
Ruthie sweet talked them.
She said, hey, you know, our bee club's
Trying to do everything we can to help with this.
Do you think you could help us with some bottles
And with some orange juice?
You need something done, get some girl to sweet talk
Whoever you need to.
Because this juice does get expensive, changing
These traps every single week.
It seems like the department of agriculture
Is very concerned about this problem.
Of course, they get paid for it, and so that kind of makes
It a little bit different, whenever it's
Your job that you have to do.
But thank god it has their attention,
And it's not just a bunch of us ragtag
Beekeepers that are trying to figure out what to do.
Even if we catch a couple murder hornets
In this particular trap, that doesn't really
Help us in the long run because it's only taking
A couple out of a big nest.
But the idea is if you hang these up in enough places,
Then we're going to know where they're active.
So we know that there's going to be a nest nearby.
I see potential.
You never know which one of these
Is going to be the one to catch the murder hornet.
Interviewer (on radio): As if the pandemic
And the economic meltdown aren't bad enough,
Now murder hornets have arrived in the pacific northwest.
Ruthie danielson is a beekeeper.
Thanks for joining us today.
Ruthie danielsen (on radio): Oh, you're welcome.
Interviewer (on radio): What do you think the chances are?
Can this invasion be stopped?
Ruthie danielsen (on radio): Well, I'm hopeful.
What you do is you get involved, and you
Try to do something about it.
Ruthie danielsen: This is a huge area.
It's all of whatcom county.
Hundreds if not thousands of square acres.
The more we get the word out, the more people
That are looking, the better chance we have.
That's an asian giant hornet queen.
Oh, wow.
So if you do see one, call.
Human intervention might have the biggest impact on us being
Able to eradicate this species.
We've got over 1,220 individual traps
Set up by the general public.
Well, I don't see anything here as far as a hornet.
They call us "citizen scientists."
I don't feel much like a scientist.
I just am a person that cares.
And if we don't do it, who will?
I've had some really tall, long, skinny, green creatures
And things that I've never seen before, creatures of the night.
This is an entomologist's dream, right?
I've been doing nonconventional female things my whole life.
And there was a job to drive a suck
Truck, which is a diesel-powered vacuum cleaner, right?
Really, really physically demanding.
And now we're talking in the '70s.
There were very few women in industry.
They looked at me and said, let's see how she can fail.
So they sent me by myself to this plant
To suck up human shit.
And I went in there, and I cleaned
Up all that human [bleep].
And I did it in three hours less than they bid the job for.
So I started doing industrial cleanup
Throughout the northwest.
They didn't necessarily want females doing what I was doing.
You'd get a lot of harassment.
I actually bought a black hills gold wedding ring
So I'd quit getting hit on.
You just have to have thick skin.
So you just be resilient, you put your head forward,
And you do the best job you can.
The reason people are trapping now and why it's important
Now is to be able to see if we can find the nest before they
Start to make new queens.
Now is when we have the chance.
So every day, people collect samples
With a number and the date it was collected,
And bring it down here and put it
In the cooler for washington state department of agriculture
To collect.
Welcome to the natural resources
Building entomology laboratory.
This is where we do all of our trap processing
And identification services.
This is one of our ace entomologists.
Early on, she requested to be on team hornet
To get a break from dissecting moth genitalia, which
Is what we do most of the time.
It's not so bad.
Sometimes, we get big old slugs.
I don't mind the smell so much, but I
Probably won't willingly drink orange juice for a long time.
These are massive amounts of traps that are being
Sent by private residents.
This is a envelope containing a trap that was put up
By a citizen science collaborator, someone
Named elsa from bellingham.
We have processed, so far, 3,794 traps from the public,
4,359 traps from wsda.
And these guys have identified more than 88,000
Individual specimens so far.
You read about climate change, acid rain, species extinctions.
And there's nothing you can do about it unless you're
Actively working in the field.
But not in this case.
I think there's lots of opportunity
To get people involved.
It's not just beekeepers, it's everybody, right?
Everybody is concerned about the hornet
Because we all right now have a bee in our bonnet about bees.
We have happy movies about bees.
They sell us cereal.
We eat honey.
So it's easy for the public to care
And invest time into something that keeps bees alive.
If this was a predator of, say, katydids,
Nobody would give a damn.
And yet, you can't fault any of us for that.
It's fine that we pick and choose the insect
Battles that we care about.
And I'm glad people are caring about this one.
We have invasive insects pretty
Much everywhere in the world.
But this one struck a lot of fear
In the heart of people at a time when they were already afraid.
Ted mcfall: This world would not be a good place
Without these fellas.
God created bees at the same time that he created plants.
And his plan was to create these creatures that
Can provide food for the earth.
Jesus talked about honey.
The ancient israelites were wandering around the desert,
Looking for the land of milk and honey.
They found honey in the tomb of king tut.
Having the ability to raise bees and harvest honey
Allows us to make decisions that are
Otherwise extremely difficult. Good thing kids don't know.
They don't know finances.
Things are real tight already as it is.
So knowing that there is honey money, in my mind,
I see, oh, ok, we can afford piano lessons for our kids.
Whenever I see some of the wax spill,
I see that as a few quarters.
I'm like, there's a quarter, and there's a quarter.
I was just thinking about them like it's precious money.
Yeah, it is.
It's liquid gold.
Love the bees.
Got to--
Keep them going.
Got to keep them going, that's right.
Keep us going.
The amount of danger that our bees are in
And the potential havoc that this animal can bring
To our bee yard is devastating.
Many things that we are unfamiliar with
Can make us uncomfortable because we don't know how
To live around them, then that could be something
That we are unwilling to learn.
Especially with our line of beekeeping,
Why would we want to live side by side?
And so even though god may have
Allowed this terrible creature to show up literally
On our doorstep and start slaughtering bees,
A lot of times, there's a bigger picture,
And there's going to be a greater good that's
Going to come out of that.
And so that's why I try to cooperate
As best I can with the department of agriculture.
I know the head of the trapper program is chris looney.
I'm not quite sure about that guy.
He seems a little laid back for my taste.
So hopefully, we're all following
In what god wills of this whole situation,
And we're trying to make right what has gone wrong.
And-- right.
That is done.
There is some brand new underwear right there.
That has not even been used.
There are a ton of fruit flies.
There's some sort of houseflies, a moth,
Probably noctua pronuba, and then
A handful of yellowjackets.
You manufacture that optimism.
Every single day, like, this could be the day
That there's one in the trap.
And every day, I believe that.
And every day, I'm disappointed.
But I'll never have that excitement,
I'll never get to find a hornet in the trap
If I don't actually get all the traps and check the traps, so.
Hm.
Somebody took one of my traps.
Little frustrating.
I really want to get live hornets so that we can get
Our usda colleagues to work on what the best
Detractant could possibly be.
Some of the other motivations for coming up with better lures
Than orange juice and rice wine is that it's
Really gross and sticky.
It'd be great to have something that is less nasty
And doesn't spill.
That's one of my motivations, anyway.
Full of mostly fruit flies.
Drosophila is the genus.
A couple of sad moths.
More fruit flies, kind of like the last one.
Yeah, this is a sticky trap, got a glue surface on here.
And then it actually has the giant hornet alarm pheromone,
Which seems like a risky thing to put on a trap,
But whatever, we're trying everything.
Being a scientist is the human being's natural state.
We are always taking in information,
Processing it, and doing our very, very best
To make repeatable decisions about our world
Based on the information we take in.
So everybody's kind of a citizen scientist all the time.
But all the citizen scientists that
Have taken this on have really, I think,
Changed the game for us.
All of the people that live here that have stepped up and placed
These traps out have essentially quadrupled
Our ability to look on the landscape
For this invasive species.
It's just huge.
It makes me a little teary.
We've got a whole bunch of zeros.
And it leaves you wondering, do we have a whole bunch of zeros
Because there are no hornets here
To be attracted to the traps, or because none of the traps
Are attractive?
I think we would learn so much if we could just find one nest.
That's why I keep not going home.
I want to stay up here until I find a nest or somebody else
Does.
[whistling]
Five more sites to go.
That right?
Six more sites to go.
Good afternoon. My name is chris looney.
I work for the washington state department of agriculture.
I was calling to talk to somebody
About accessing property up near blaine
To look for the asian giant hornets.
I've been siding the greenhouse,
And I started seeing bugs, big bugs,
That weren't familiar at all.
I had come in the shop to grab a tool,
And I heard the humming sound that I
Realized was the murder hornet.
And at first, I couldn't tell where it was.
But then I realized it was up by the open window upstairs.
So this is where I first saw the hornet up close.
He was coming in here, and he was landing on the wasp nests.
So I went, and I got a can of wasp spray.
I held my breath, and I shot, and I
Basically emptied half a can.
Oh, yeah, that does sound like a good spot.
Water and conifers, all right.
He did observe them flying off in a straight bee line
To the southwest, which is great news.
Because as far as we know, that's
What they do when they're returning to their nest.
And he sent me some pictures and said, here it is.
They're walking around, looking at stuff.
That's fantastic then.
Chris pulled in our driveway, and we stood for about an hour,
Just watching and listening for hornets.
Didn't really see any.
And right when I was about to leave--
We saw one fly over the ridge of the house
Down over the roof and start buzzing
Around the eaves of the house.
And chris sauntered over there with his basically big
Butterfly net.
And when he was in the right position,
He arced it over, grabbed it, flipped
The net around to lock it in.
And we were able to capture it.
And that's what's in this cooler.
This is what we call the robo fly.
What we're trying to do is build this little robot
That's about the size of an actual insect.
That was my first introduction to building
These sorts of small things that are at insect scale.
And at some point, I realized that those same small things
That we'd been building to put on little robots
Could also be attached to live insects.
I found out about this issue with the asian giant hornets,
So I reached out to the department of agriculture.
And it turns out that the sorts of radio technologies that we
Had been building in the lab were pretty
Well-aligned with what they needed to do-- something
Small enough to be able to attach to a live hornet
That we could then use to try to follow it back to its nest.
Oh.
There she is.
I do have it on ice to keep it calm.
And I'll try to do it fast so if she
Does wake up, doesn't fly away.
You can see its abdomen is moving in and out.
So insects don't have lungs, right.
They just have this network of tubes that feeds
Oxygen to batches of cells.
And when they pump their abdomen like that,
Sometimes, they're helping force air through.
I don't know if this wasp is going to make it,
But it's the best lead we've had so far.
And it came from an actual human being just seeing one
And calling us, not our bad mimosas
That we hang up all over the landscape.
Oh, look at those wings.
All right, I'm going to close this up
Because I don't want it to fly away.
Fingers crossed.
This has been like chasing ghosts the whole time,
And finally, I got a ghost in the net.
This is almost a win.
Tomorrow morning, we're hopefully
Going to find a happy, healthy hornet that wants to go home.
We will glue a bluetooth tag to it,
And work with our buddy vikram, and try
To follow it through the woods.
So this is the receiver that we're using.
We have this large directional antenna
That's receiving the broadcast coming from the little tag
That we're going to put on the hornet.
So we've got three of the little trackers.
And I just have this charger here
To make sure the batteries stayed at 100%
Until we need them.
All right.
Do you guys have something to apply glue with?
The mission this morning is to see if all of this works.
We're going to try tagging a hornet.
We're going to hope the hornet's still alive.
We're going to hope the hornet does what hornets do,
Which is to fly home.
And we're going to hope that the phones do what
Vikram wants them to do, which is to help
Us find where that home is.
That's really it.
If we get all of that done today, I can probably retire.
We'll have had a major success.
It is super active.
I'm going to put her right on the ice
And let her be real cold for a minute.
So what are we doing?
So I've got super glue here.
You can put a drop then and put it on its back.
All right.
The other thing is I found on some insects
That scoring the area where you're going to attach it,
That helps the glue stick better.
Sure.
So you're going to do this?
I don't know if I'm going to score this insect.
Yeah, that's what I thought.
[chuckle]
It's going to be ok.
You're going to love this.
Yeah, yeah.
Ok.
So I see a little bit of it has dried.
We probably want to put more glue, otherwise,
I think it's just going to fall off.
Yeah.
And it just did.
Here, you hold it, chris.
And I'll try to get glue.
So you want to put some glue on from the sides--
No, no, no. Her wings are getting stuck.
It's no good.
It just needs to chill.
Relax.
Just relax.
It's fine.
Wings are all ripped up.
Well.
Let's try it again.
Come here, girl.
This is a lot of crap to happen to this poor wasp.
Yeah.
Boy, do you think that's--
Do you think we still need to reinforce with glue?
No, I think that's--
We don't want to risk getting her wings any gluier.
Yeah, tap a little accelerant on there, but I mean,
It's pretty much dry.
Yeah.
It's on there.
It's on there pretty good though.
She's not happy.
No, not happy.
You're right.
So I'm going to put her in here for a minute.
All right.
Ok.
Oh, it came off.
[groaning]
Didn't sleep last night.
Full of weird anxiety dreams.
I had a dream I was at seaworld.
And I needed to sign my name on a piece of paper,
And I couldn't sign it right.
It's like the paper was all soggy.
What a drag.
Could also do the--
Tie the string too.
See what I'm saying?
Loop it around.
Like a couple loops around the abdomen with string.
Dental floss.
We are going to try basically dangling it from the petiole,
So the area where the mesosoma and the metasoma
Are joined together is very, very narrow, very flexible.
It's how a wasp can sting you all over the place.
We're going to make a little cinchy noose.
We'll put it around the abdomen, cinch it up,
And just let the tag dangle.
I would very much like this to work though.
All right, lady.
Ok, let's do this again.
Now we're talking.
Man: I see there.
All right, now let her warm up.
Let's get the phones.
Get the gps going.
[shout]
Well, I don't think she's going to be able to fly.
We glued her wings together.
She's trying to--
Yeah.
So we're going to have to catch another one.
What I am wondering is if she is releasing
Alarm pheromones as we speak.
That's what I'm wondering.
Yeah, that's a bummer.
So are you going to take care of her
For the rest of her life?
If by "take care of her," you mean chop her legs
Off and analyze her dna, yes.
Ted mcfall: Is that the famous conrad.
- Hi, I'm conrad. - You are the conrad.
I'm ted mcfall. Nice to meet you.
Oh, you're ted. Nice.
Yeah, yeah.
I recognize you from the youtube videos.
Nice.
So I'm on the end of just being a victim
Of the asian giant hornet.
So far, I haven't killed one.
I haven't even seen one flying yet myself.
So to meet the guy on the other side of the border that
Has actually killed a nest and killed the murder hornets
Over there, that's kind of like heroic for this part
Of the country for sure.
I had the dubious distinction of serving as the trigger
Man for the eradication of the first nest
Of asian giant hornets discovered in north america.
About mid-August 2019, specimens started
Showing up in the province of british columbia.
A colleague of mine, she and her husband
Were following a footpath along a creek
And saw the flightline of the hornets going to their nest.
I had some experience collecting entire colonies
Of yellowjackets for the preparation
Of desensitization serum for people
That are allergic to yellowjacket stings.
So she called me and said, we found the nest,
We found the nest.
Come over, and we'll do something.
So I grabbed my carbon dioxide fire extinguisher
And my handi-vac that I normally used for sucking
Up the yellowjackets.
I put on the kevlar vest that I have in case--
Interviewer: Bulletproof vest?
Yeah, a bulletproof vest.
I squatted down with the handi-vac.
I turned it on and tried to suck up what I see coming
Out of the nest entrance.
And it's kind of like--
[buzzing]
Like stuck to the nozzle.
And it's like, this isn't going to work.
And then it freed itself from the suction
And then stung me four times.
Yeah, it hurt.
It's like red, hot thumbtacks being driven in your flesh.
Not everybody's into that.
I give them a dose of carbon dioxide.
When insects are flying, they're metabolizing a lot
Of oxygen. If you give them carbon
Dioxide instead of oxygen, they basically suffocate--
[snap]-- right away.
It's like dagobah.
Look at this.
The size of the cells.
Oh my god.
Oh, look at this.
Oh my goodness.
It was getting at the time of year
Where sexual reproductives would be cast off,
So it was pretty imperative that the nest be eradicated
As quickly as possible.
This, there's the queen.
Oh, that's the queen?
- So. - Let me see.
Oh, look at her.
Look at the size.
Oh my god.
Let me see the queen.
Look how beautiful she is.
Do you see her?
I know.
I know, I know.
It is god's creature.
Oh my god.
There's a certain pang in having
Been involved in its eradication on the island.
It's a beautiful animal.
But it's an invasive species, and the impacts
That it might have on the environment
Are unknown, so why risk it?
Oh, awesome. Hit him.
It's an asian giant hornet.
Get him.
I figured if we found the nest,
I figured I'd go incognito.
So that's the queen.
She is huge.
Yeah.
Wow.
Can I hold her?
Yeah, for sure.
Yeah.
Wow.
Like what I've been doing with--
Oh, [bleep].
I did it.
I've done it twice already today.
Here, let me hang it.
Do you need the camera?
Come on.
My pet murder hornet. Oh.
Ruthie danielsen: Oh my goodness.
Conrad berube: Do you want to take off the mask?
Yeah. Ruthie danielsen: Yeah, yeah.
Conrad berube: There you go. Ruthie danielsen: Easy.
Oh.
Get a quick selfie with the famous conrad.
Ok, we're going to look nobly in each direction
And take our masks off.
Ruthie danielsen: You want me to take it?
Ok, ready?
Look in the opposite direction and look noble.
Yeah, normally, the sting is inside.
But in death, they kind of lose their--
- Oh, sure. - You know?
Yeah.
It's going to be hard to get them though, don't you think?
Yeah.
I feel like it's like trying to stop coronavirus or something,
You know?
Once it's here, how are you ever going to get them all?
Yeah.
Conrad just had offered to come
Down and share his insights from his experience
On vancouver island.
We've been discussing the biology
And kicking around ideas for how to better attract and monitor
For the workers who are out foraging.
So this is the rice wine and orange juice?
And honey.
Honey.
All right, nothing in that.
So where are you deciding to put your live traps?
So this one.
So this is a live trap, eh?
Wow.
Has a hornet in it.
This is the first one that I've caught in one of my traps.
We caught one.
And now we're going to tag it and follow it home.
Yeah, there.
Number 4.
So chris just glued on the little piece of string
That we're going to use to actually
Attach this to the hornet.
If you remember, last time, we had some issues
Being able to apply glue.
Kept moving around.
I think a little bit got on one of the hind wings.
And so now we're trying this method.
All right.
All right, girl.
She looks pretty cold.
Think you're good.
I've only got her by one wing now.
Careful.
All right.
I'm not going to mess with it anymore.
It's just going to be where it is.
I actually wish I had made it a little bit tighter.
It's going to be fine.
Yeah.
All right, let's take her over here
Where we hope to release her.
All right, there.
Now she's up there, warming up.
Hopefully, she can walk around.
She's agitated.
Keep your distance.
There she goes.
All right, well, let's see.
Oh, yeah, I just got it.
This way.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
So I think somewhere up in these trees.
Pretty good.
Yeah, that actually means she's relatively close
Somewhere, somewhere up there.
Well, that didn't take long to lose sight, huh?
Yeah.
Are you still seeing it?
No.
Because I'm not either.
Nope.
She is gone somewhere.
Hey, chris, I'm going to walk around this way.
Ok.
You want to wander around over there?
Indeed.
I think she probably flew off.
I picked it up.
It was pretty strong there for a second, then it stopped.
Oh, yeah.
I got it.
Over here.
Still think they're back there somewhere.
I think that's it.
Now it's time to start wandering in the woods.
Yep.
Not sure I like this many people creeping up on a nest, guys.
Which fork?
I know everybody's excited, but please,
There is actually a real danger to what we're doing today.
Are you picking it up?
I think she looped back around the back side of the woods.
That way?
Yeah.
We lost the signal.
Just had it again.
Yeah, I'm getting really good signal
Pointing straight down here.
We lost it, and chris got it.
Yeah, chris is all the way back over on the other side
Of this yard.
That thing took off.
They can fly really fast.
I wonder if the nest isn't right there.
She could be underground.
So what brave soul's going to go wandering in there
To see what's going on?
Me.
I've got clippers in the truck.
Well, we're going to have to go buy a machete, but yeah.
But if I go in, I don't have a signal even slightly.
So she either got past us, or she's down in the ground
There somewhere.
These blackberry bushes are nasty.
Oldest trick-- go backwards through the blackberries.
Just wondering what I was thinking coming along on this.
All right, I have 100% lost it.
She's gone.
Hey, did you guys lose it?
I don't see it.
Yeah, we completely lost it.
If she started flying again, then
Who knows how far she's gone, right?
It's probably underground.
Everybody has lost it now.
They fly pretty fast.
What do you say we call it a day?
Yeah, call it a day.
Fun one.
He was like, I wonder what the current news
About murder hornets is.
So I looked it up, and the headline was something
Like, "washington state fails to track hornet again,"
Which was true, but it was a bit of a downer headline.
I guess I was a little frustrated whenever they caught
A murder hornet, and got glue on its wings,
And had a little fiasco trying to put a tracker on them
And all that.
I was like, oh, here's our big chance.
And then they blew it.
I was like, oh, come on.
I know the entomologists feel like they
Already know everything.
But beekeepers are very well aware
Of putting creatures to sleep and waking them back up
And things like that.
And honestly, I was pretty upset.
One, this has never been done before.
Two, my god, try to get a collar on a cat
And see how easy that is sometimes.
And three, it's like, excuse me for saying this,
But [bleep] happens.
My ex mother-in-law would always say,
"it only gets worse," which is a very glass half empty
Kind of perspective, right?
But it also suggests that this is
Your best shot, so just assume this is all you've got
And go for it 100%.
Failure is always the logical conclusion of everything I do,
But not trying is even more failing.
So you just muscle through it and try
Not to let that mean voice in the back of your head
Tell you to quit.
These are the food traps that we set out yesterday.
But we had a proteinaceous bait, basically cat food.
This is tuna patÃ©.
[meow]
What is that?
Is that a kitten?
Hey, cat.
What you doing?
Where'd you come from?
Find us some asian giant hornets?
In my mental wanderings, I was making the comparison
Of a sasquatch in saskatoon.
If you were in an apartment building,
And you saw a sasquatch, and then
It ran upstairs into one of the rooms
In the apartment building, finding it
Would be a challenge.
And the scale of having to find something in the great outdoors
As opposed to a single building is just
Astronomically more difficult.
You may have noted I'm not even looking up here because they're
Exclusively ground nesters.
So you're not going to find them above ground level.
The only way that you would find a nest in something like this
Is if you were to see hornets flying out
From the base of the debris.
In the forested area around nanaimo,
There are patches that are as impenetrable as here,
But it's not completely clogged with blackberry.
Well, I'm going to take the cat food down and leave
It for our little furry friend.
There you go.
Look.
There you go.
Just need to get the asian giant hornets
To respond the same way.
But best laid plans, mice and men, often go [inaudible]..
Frankly, I don't think they're going to find it.
Oh, hey.
I looked at the ferry schedule, and it
Looks like it makes more sense for me to try
And boot it home tonight.
Woman (on phone): Yeah.
If you could have anything from america, what would it be?
Ok. Woman (on phone): Yeah.
Have a good one. - Bye, sweetie.
Have a good day.
[kiss]
Bye.
[fog horn]
These gurkha knives are actually made to behead people.
This particular one was my grandfathers,
Who fought in world war ii.
They didn't believe in taking prisoners of war.
So they would catch the nazis, and when
The nazis would surrender, they would say, uh-uh.
As the murder hornet comes flying by,
It'll smell the sap from the tree, and it'll try to go in.
And when it tries to go in, it'll accidentally
Bump the outside of this sticky stuff with his wings,
And he'll get captured on there.
It's poetic justice that I'm using a beheading tool
To try to stop the creatures that are here
On us soil, beheading bees.
My grandfather, he's been dead a long time.
I'm sure he'd be real proud of me right now to know that I'm
Using his gurkha beheading tool to try to help stop
This murder hornet problem.
All right.
I'm going to go put this in a location
I think a hornet's nest might be,
And then chris is going to try to find it.
This technology is a vhf radio tag
As opposed to a bluetooth chip.
In theory, the signal carries a little further.
And we should be able to pick it up again if it for some reason
Goes out of range.
Oh, yeah.
That works pretty well.
I mean, it just lights up hard when you get in the right zone.
He was within two feet of it.
And I guarantee, if we're sitting on a hornet's nest,
Two feet away from the hornet's nest
Is going to be close enough for us to find it.
Yesterday afternoon, I heard the noise again,
The loud buzzing sound.
He said the sound was kind of like a hummingbird.
He was hiding under the eaves there, and so I walked up,
I got close.
And I was watching him, but I couldn't get
Him while he was under there.
So he climbed onto his roof, which is the worst
Idea any human can have.
You don't swing nets at bugs on roofs.
That's how you fall off.
And then he just flew out and was hovering
Right there in front of me.
And when he did, I just made a swoop,
And then I rolled it up like that.
I saw chris do that.
And I got it.
It was like the platonic ideal of citizen-agency
Collaboration.
Well, philip, I'm surprised that you've done all this stuff.
I'm surprised I've done all this stuff.
Yeah?
Yeah.
My weeks don't usually go like this.
I'll be all depressed when it goes back to normal.
It was super cool to-- you know,
I don't want to say bond, but kind of bond with him that way.
The receivers seem to be working.
What was that?
That kind of looked like another hornet.
Did one just fly by?
I think it's a good sign.
Look at that stinger come out.
Yep, I see it.
Under there.
Watch it. Watch it.
Ok, watch out.
One leg there.
Oh, yeah.
You're on.
Nope. She's good.
Yeah.
Cut them.
All right.
Stand back.
So let's give her some jelly.
It's what hornets want.
Looks good.
Looks like there's nothing in the way of the wings.
I like that she's eating now.
This is very encouraging.
It's looking good.
Now she just noticed the tag.
There it goes.
She's flying around.
[inaudible]
Yeah, I think it flew this way.
Which way?
Into the sun.
Well, she took off, didn't she?
Went home.
Yeah, let's go see where home is.
Getting it just right here.
I'm not hearing anything now.
Let's go around and get in a little bit deeper.
Nothing.
That way?
Maybe she's underground.
[radio click]
I heard that.
She's in here somewhere.
There's a chance that it's actually still just moving.
Could be just moving.
[radio clicking]
That was really loud.
I wouldn't be shocked if it was in that little gully there.
Stay back so I have a clear path to run.
This is nuts.
It's around somewhere.
It's either a nest or our tag, but where?
[dog barking]
It seems like it's got to be a tag at this point--
A dead hornet or the dropped tag-- because I feel like we
Would all see hornets, no?
I feel like it because you're right on top of it.
Nothing here.
Where the hell is she?
Wait, wait, wait, wait.
Wait.
Sorry.
I just saw a mound of dirt under a tree there.
Chris, I hear it.
I heard it.
You mean the hornet?
Loud buzzing.
Right there. - There it goes.
Whoa.
That was not our hornet, was it?
I don't think so.
No.
Oh.
Ah, shit.
I see the hole.
It's not in the ground.
Are you kidding?
It's in a tree.
It's in the freaking tree?
Yes.
Holy crap.
(singing) we've got ourselves a nest.
Oh, oh!
We've got ourselves a problem.
How the hell are we going to kill that?
That's it.
That's the nest.
Oh, thank god.
Watch yourself, chris.
I want to talk to the homeowner
Then about taking this tree down.
Yeah.
I'm all turned around, so I don't know if we've
Talked to you before or not.
Let's take it.
Ok.
I'm a potato farmer, so I've been gone the last month.
Oh, yeah?
Ok.
You need to [inaudible].
All right.
- In theory-- - yeah?
They can get a little aggressive
If you get too close.
No kidding.
Holy.
Do you know, I come through with my lawn mower
And never seen them.
Yes, we're assuming you'll agree to let us deal with that.
It'll probably be Saturday morning.
To what? Take that tree down?
Well--
Oh, kill them?
Kill the nest first, then take the tree down.
Light it up?
[laugh]
So you just come through the woods, or you just came around?
We came through the woods.
Normally, we ask first, but we had to follow her, so.
So is this the first nest you've found?
Yes.
The very first one?
First nest in the us.
Wow.
Canadians got one last year.
Look how big that thing is.
Yeah, congratulations.
Let's see if you can buy some lottery tickets today.
No kidding.
I could use a lottery right now.
Chris looney: You compound the difficulty of even catching
These things to begin with with the complication of catching
Them alive and then figuring out a way to follow
Them back to their nest.
That's pretty challenging.
The public service thing is part of my family.
I'm the only male in three generations that wasn't
Actually in the military.
I have a brother who is a very successful major in the army.
I have a cousin who is a master chief petty officer.
That's like the highest rank you can be in the coast guard.
I got a lot to live up to.
But I have massive issues with authority.
I would be a crappy soldier.
Being a public servant is awesome.
I love that I work for every person that
Can figure out how to call me.
And because of that, I don't want
To be just some slug sitting in an office
Somewhere, taking up public money.
And one of those jobs that we have
Is to try and do our very, very best to eradicate things
That we don't want in north america,
Specifically washington state.
And we got one.
I feel like the money that everybody
Paid for me to do my job was better spent than not.
Now they can say, "washington state finds hornets in trees,
Even though they said they'd never be in trees,"
Or something like that.
Maybe that will be the negative spin.
The scientists consider it, and they determined
That there are more negatives than positives
About them being here.
And so they decided this is the best thing to do.
And I trust them in that decision.
But they are beautiful insects and interesting insects.
And in some ways, it maybe wouldn't
Feel so bad to have an insect like that around here.
I feel sad.
If they didn't hurt the honeybees,
What would be wrong with them?
Yeah, look at that.
Look at that beast.
What a evil, little creature.
It just felt really good to know that the next day, all of them
Were going to be dead.
Oh, I would love to have stomped them.
The only way that it would be more justice
Is if they would have let me go in,
Behead all the murder hornets.
Glue them all down to something and let
Me chop their little heads off or something.
I just hate them so much, you know?
I mean, they already slaughtered so many of my bees last year.
So thank god that this particular colony
Is going to be wiped out tomorrow morning.
This little fella on this leaf that I'm looking at right now,
He'll be slaughtered.
We're going to him right back to hell where he came from.
As dangerous as these can be, and as much as I don't want
To be stung by them, the idea of murder hornets
Is a very hyperbolic nickname.
The concept of murdering things exists in an ethical sphere,
Right?
And that only makes sense for humans when we're talking
About what our morals are.
Ascribing our own ethics to the actions of other species, let
Alone insects, which are so different than vertebrates
That they're essentially an alien life form, is nonsense.
Still dangerous.
Maybe dangerous hornets, but not murder hornets.
News today from washington state.
It came in a statement of two words--
"got them."
Today, federal agriculture authorities
Destroyed a murder hornet nest, the first ever
Found in the united states.
Reporter: This morning, finally, a major breakthrough
For washington state researchers who
Have found where some of the elusive hornets
Have been hiding.
Reporter: The first known nest of its kind in the us,
Discovered inside a tree north of seattle.
Many times, people say that working with government
Agencies is a waste of time.
And I have to disagree with that.
Working with washington state department of agriculture
Has been fabulous.
We have that synergy that occurs when you get a lot of people,
Kind of like the beehives, working on a common goal.
I can imagine when all those thousands of people that have
Put up traps heard that they found a nest,
There was a collective yay.
We are not in the clear yet.
Entomologists saying there is still a very good chance
There could be more nests.
Beekeepers hoping that's not the case.
The asian giant hornet is here because of humans
And the choices humans make.
Everything is connected.
If we tip the balance one way, it's
Going to have an impact on something
That we might not even have thought about.
Reporter: Left unchecked, murder hornets can potentially wipe
Out honeybees in north america.
It's very serious.
But score one for the scientists.
When we work together, when we have good science,
And if we get enough people engaged,
Then I absolutely believe that we have a chance
To eradicate this hornet.
I've seen so much stuff in my life
That people say I can't do.
It's like, no.
I reject that and say yes, we can.
Of course, we can.
So now let's find the second one.
We didn't eradicate the nest the day
We vacuumed it up, right?
All we did was catch a lot of insects and seal it.
And so what's going on in that nest is still a mystery.
Oh, I want that one.
Yeah.
I know.
Yeah, it looks like the queen, or a queen.
Yeah.
That's her.
So we cut the tree down, carved it
Into a movable section, and hauled it
Off to a laboratory to look at.
We ended up doing it at washington state university
Because they had a big cold room that we
Could be in that would keep them chilled
While we were working on it.
I looked out of my kitchen window,
And I thought to myself, wow, this looks like somebody
Got murdered in our backyard.
There was tons of people with red lights,
And they were documenting everything.
And then the news started getting out that the first nest
Was in our backyard.
There's national news on this, not even just in the us,
Everywhere.
Sven was in charge of the tree part, and I told him, I'm like,
Ok, we're going to take this tree down.
Then what are we going to do?
They were here.
They got what they want.
And then here I am, stuck with the mess.
What do I get for this?
It's not the fact that there's a nest in it.
It's just my property, you know.
I paid taxes on that property, so we want it back.
I told them I wanted every specimen,
Every larva, everything back.
The same murder hornet chaos that
Has made people really engaged also
Makes them kind of want them.
Because this species is an introduced species,
It is not governed by washington state fish and wildlife laws
Explicitly.
There's kind of this gray empty area.
And so the landowner just said, I want this nest back.
He says, nothing gets released unless it's
Approved by me in writing, so.
I guess I had thought we would open
It exactly on the other side, but that's pretty deep.
I don't think anything is coming out in this temperature.
I'm going to roll it.
There's quite a few in there.
Do you want to gas it?
Yeah.
That ought to slow them down.
Split that tree open.
Oh, there's quite a few.
Yeah.
Stay back.
Keep your eyes open.
[inaudible] found all of these living wasps.
They're crawling around.
All right, let's pick those suckers off.
How fast can you guys run?
Oh, she's a big one.
We opened it up, and there was a nest six combs deep.
Quite a few hatched out, I think.
Yeah, this was an interesting one here.
It looks like they started cannibalizing their own.
Lunch.
[laughter]
There were still almost 200 larvae in it.
76 living queens.
One of them, presumably, was the foundress.
The other ones were all the new queens that were emerging.
I think we got that nest, frankly, right before they all
Would have left.
That's our tag.
That's our tracking tag.
There is no doubt that had we not destroyed this nest,
Each of those queens could be a new nest next year.
We didn't get the whole species.
It's one triumph on a very long road to winning this race
To eradicate things that we don't want in north america,
Specifically washington state.
Agriculture, this is chris.
How's it going, man?
We're all right.
We opened up that nest, and actually, I
Was going to call you because I have a proposal for you,
And that would be a lot more specimens for you
If you're interested.
But I would ask, in return, if we can maybe take six of them
And get them to some of these pheromone researchers.
The ability to get a fresh queen is really unprecedented.
I don't think we'd have that opportunity another time.
There's essentially 100 queens in there by now.
I talked him into giving up eight queens.
It was very unexpected.
Never would have anticipated that.
It was 100% a slap in the face finding out that I suddenly had
To beg for access to this nest.
American taxpayers had spent, basically,
At this point, a half a million bucks to track
A nest down and capture it.
And then suddenly, we had this unanticipated barrier.
And this is a big dog.
People sell them all over the internet, I'm finding out,
30 to 50 bucks apiece.
I should have over a hundred of them,
And I plan to sell them on ebay.
Chris looney: If you've got a hundred
Things you can sell for 40 bucks a pop,
That's a big chunk of money.
It's hard for me to say that's the wrong thing
For you to do without just being moralizing and grandstanding.
Nothing's really too significant about these to me.
They're just another bee.
It's just one of those things that it
Would be a good wall art, I guess, in the house, you know?
Get it mounted or something.
I was going to make him a display
Case with the comb and all the specimens and stuff.
And I'm like, well, [bleep] it.
Here's your frozen nest.
Right?
I'm not going to do that now.
On 3.
It was a blow to science.
It was a blow to american history
Is actually what I see it as.
I still think this should be preserved in the smithsonian.
All right.
Well, everybody have a good weekend.
Drive safely, sven.
See you later.
(singing) happy birthday to dada.
Happy birthday to you.
Thank you.
I'm going to blow it out covid-19-friendly.
4, 1.
That's it.
Yay.
I'm not sure about the wine with the cake.
I think maybe I should've gone with the milk with the cake.
Oh.
It's a bug zapper.
I didn't see that one coming.
Whenever I'm drinking our fine honey wine,
I like it whenever she plays the piano, because I feel refined.
I feel like I'm--
Elegant?
--Upper crust kind of a person.
Play a song for us, kat.
Hey, come on, we're paying for these piano lessons.
We've got to take advantage of these.
Can you play the theme song for 2020?
I think you know what I'm talking about.
[plays "the exorcist" theme]
[laughter]
"2020-- pandemic."
"2020-- murder hornets."
For us to think that there's not more
Murder hornets in this area would be totally naive.
We successfully got rid of a nest, which is a big win.
But we're going to war.
And actually, I'm going to ask the department
Of agriculture, hey, do you need a master
Beekeeper on your team?
I'm convinced that real heroes are just
Regular people that try to do the right thing
And accidentally become heroes.
Jeff kornelis (voiceover): When I
Think about this hornet coming to my porch,
I often wonder why.
Why me?
I think these things happen for a reason.
Nature is more intelligent than we give it credit for.
It might seem hard to believe, or kind of woo woo,
But I think this hornet ended up on my porch
Because I would know what to do with it.
It was guided by its intelligence
To its final resting place.
Nature can bring us messages, whether or not
We're ready to hear it.
And I think these hornets are giving us a reminder that we
Need to be stewards for our environment
And do what we can to take care of it.
I see a lot of beauty in these hornets.
And I see that they do belong somewhere.
They just don't belong here.
[music - guided by voices, "I am a scientist"]
âª I am a scientist-- âª
âª I seek to understand me, all of my impurities and evils âª
âª yet unknown. âª
âª I am a journalist-- âª
âª I write to you to show you I am an incurable, âª
âª and nothing else behaves like me. âª
âª and I know what's right, but I'm losing sight âª
âª of the clues for which I search and choose, âª
âª to abuse, to just unlock my mind, âª
âª yeah, just unlock my mind. âª
âª I am a pharmacist-- prescriptions I will fill you. âª
âª potions, pills, and medicines to ease your painful lives. âª
âª I am a lost soul-- âª
âª I shoot myself with rock and roll. âª
âª the hole I dig is bottomless, but âª
âª nothing else can set me free. âª
âª and I know what's right, but I'm losing sight âª
âª of the clues for which I search and choose, âª
âª to abuse, to just unlock my mind, âª
âª yeah, just unlock my mind. âª
âª I am a scientist-- âª
âª I seek to understand me. âª
âª I am an incurable, and nothing else behaves like me. âª
âª everything is right. âª
âª everything works out right. âª
âª everything fades from sight because that's âª
âª all right with me. âª