Predatory insect trapped in Jasper County. It could zap SC’s beekeeping industry
A nightmare insect that threatens the beekeeping industry was trapped earlier this month in Jasper County, according to Clemson University officials.
The yellow-legged hornet, as harmful to humans as other hornets, is particularly devastating to wild and managed bee populations. Predatory in nature, the spiteful insect is known to attack western honey bee colonies.
Yellow-legged hornets have “become a serious pest of beekeeping operations where it has been introduced,” said Ben Powell, director of Clemson Cooperative Extension’s Apiary and Pollinator program.
The species, native to Southeast Asia, builds egg-shaped paper nests above ground and typically in trees. Yellow-legged hornets’ nests can be big, with about 6,000 workers calling it home. Without a second glance, it can look like several native insects, including the cicada killer wasp, the bald-faced hornet, paper wasps, queen yellowjackets, wood wasps and robber flies. But the invasive zapping insect is much larger than its look-alike counterparts.
“Establishment of this exotic pest in the U.S. would pose a significant threat to our already embattled beekeeping enterprises,” Powell said.
And the health of beekeeping matters. A lot.
In the United States, the bees’ honey crop has an estimated value of over $300 million a year, according to the 2019 USDA Honey Report. Think of wax and propolis, and the honey we slather on food and stir into tea. Production of about one-third of the human diet requires insect pollination, and honey bees perform most of pollination for these cultivated crops, Clemson University said.
Honey bees alone contribute about $20 billion to the value of the nation’s crop production annually. Almonds, blueberries and cherries are nearly completely reliant on honey bee pollination, the university said. These vital bees have also diversified the human diet, providing nutrition that promotes health and longevity. Livestock production through pollination of forage plants like alfalfa and clover need these bees.
South Carolina has a robust beekeeping industry, said Steven Long, assistant director, Clemson Department of Plant Industry (DPI). Not to mention, what Long called, an “enthusiastic beekeeping hobbyist community.”
But yellow-legged hornets throw a major cog in the wheel.
On Nov. 9, one of the invasive insects was trapped in Jasper County. The USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service confirmed it a week later, believing it to be the first-known detection of the hornet in South Carolina. On Aug. 9, a yellow-legged hornet was captured in Savannah, Georgia.
While finding this hornet in South Carolina doesn’t indicate that the insects have made a home in the state, it does put up a red flag for researchers. Yellow-legged hornets don’t care about state lines, they said. And the proximity of the most recent trapping to Savannah has researchers concerned.
Clemson’s DPI is enhancing its current trapping efforts in the area as a result, according to the university, and it will work with federal officials to confirm suspected specimens, responding to active hornet colonies if they’re found.
The public can help, too. If there is a yellow-legged hornet spotting, report the findings to www.clemson.edu/public/regulatory/plant-industry/invasive/ylh.html.
