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Remember the murder hornets? Back in May 2020, when the reality of what would turn out to be a yearlong quarantine was just beginning to set in, a news story broke of yet another plague menacing our shores. "Murder hornets," enormous predatory insects with deadly stings and a penchant for beheading entire hives of bees, had been sighted in Washington state, prompting a statewide search and eradication effort that lasted the whole summer.
With dwindling honeybee populations already a worry amongst entomologists, botanists, beekeepers, and farmers alike, the advent of the Asian giant hornet, dramatically dubbed "murder hornet" in the press, could spell death to a native American insect species already near the tipping point. (Our bees don't have the defense mechanism against giant hornets that Asian honeybees do: When one is spotted near a hive, the bees glom onto its body in clumps 20 or 40 strong and beat their wings to generate heat, cooking the hornet to death.) Compounded with the stress of a worldwide pandemic, the news of murder hornets seemed Biblical.