LEILA FADEL, HOST:
The yellow-legged hornet is originally from Asia, but the invasive species is quickly spreading across two southern U.S. states where it's threatening honeybee colonies. South Carolina Public Radio's Victoria Hansen reports.
VICTORIA HANSEN, BYLINE: Yellow-legged hornets stalk honeybees. They hover near hives and wait for pollinating bees to return from foraging.
(SOUNDBITE OF HORNETS BUZZING)
HANSEN: Then the hornets ambush and dismember the bees, devouring only the middle - the thorax - to feed to their young. Longtime beekeeper David Arnal of Hilton Head Island says his colonies have become crime scenes with honeybees reluctant to leave home.
DAVID ARNAL: They, you know, watch their sisters get eaten on the way back in, and they effectively hunker down.
HANSEN: Arnal says he's lost numerous colonies to this invasive species now preying upon South Carolina and Georgia's Lowcountry. He farms out bees to pollinate produce.
ARNAL: I've had farmers come and watch the hornets eat the bees and weep. Just weep.
BRAD CAVIN: My No. 1 question is, what's going to happen to agriculture?
HANSEN: That's Brad Cavin. He worries about pollination. He leads the state's invasive species response team for yellow-legged hornets. Cavin hunts hornets with teammates like Caroline Oatley.
CAROLINE OATLEY: I just heard one. It literally sounds like (imitating hornet).
HANSEN: Oatley tries to track the neon-legged killers by catching them. She's armed with a paint pen.
(SOUNDBITE OF PAINT CAN SHAKING)
HANSEN: And a net.
OATLEY: So I've got her. I've got her pinned down.
HANSEN: Oatley carefully paints the hornet's belly bright orange, then releases it.
OATLEY: We're going to wait. We're going to see how many minutes it takes for her to come back, and that'll potentially give us a closer location of where that nest is.
HANSEN: But hornet nests can be hard to find, even though some grow as large as an exercise ball. The light brown lairs are often tucked beneath the roof or in trees hidden by palm fronds and Spanish moss.
CAVIN: This is the perfect location for an invasive species like this to take hold.
HANSEN: Cavin says the hornets first appeared in Georgia in 2023, most likely hitchhiking aboard a cargo ship. He says a year later, his team found 16 nests in South Carolina. This year, they've destroyed roughly 500. Cavin says his team relies on federal funding. In Georgia, trackers also get state funding. They've removed about 80 nests this year. Now North Carolina has had sightings, too. Exterminator Nate Krelis is ready to take out a nest, but first he puts on protective clothes.
(SOUNDBITE OF ZIPPER CLOSING)
HANSEN: Then he faces off with angry hornets at the entrance.
NATE KRELIS: I'm going to use a piece of a sponge to cover the hole. Stop them from leaving.
HANSEN: Krelis injects the nest with an insecticide.
(SOUNDBITE OF LIQUID SPRAYING)
HANSEN: He removes the grapefruit-sized nest from beneath the porch. Bigger nests are often beyond his ladder's reach. That's when tree climbers are called in. They use special ropes and machines to catapult as high as 100 feet.
(SOUNDBITE OF CHAINSAW BUZZING)
HANSEN: They cut a limb, and the nest comes down. It can hold thousands of hornets.
(SOUNDBITE OF TREE LIMB CRASHING)
HANSEN: Removing nests can be costly. Cavin says as much as $3,000 each. On Hilton Head Island, Michael Lewis' (ph) wife has spotted three.
MICHAEL LEWIS: She happened to be floating in our pool and just looked up and said, Mike, that's not a pine cone up there.
HANSEN: Cavin encourages people to look up and report nests. He says his team needs help eradicating this elusive and aggressive predator.
For NPR News, I'm Victoria Hansen on Hilton Head Island.
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