131 replies to this topic

[ponerinecat]

IMO these were intentionally released to harm agriculture in the USA to further damage our economy.

  If these spread our only defense is importing the japanese honeybee-  I'm sure most of you know this already, but the european honeybee has no defense against this wasp.  The JAPANESE honeybee, however, clusters on scouts and furiously buzz to cook the wasp before it can mark the beehive.  These will decimate native bees too.  they are bad bad news.  will attack other animals too, these guys will prey on birds, mice, lizards, any kind of meat they can find.  VERY bad invasive.

Really, have you not read the previous posts? These hornets will pose some danger but importing more honeybees will be even worse. They will almost certainly begin to decimate native bees via competition. And from the sound of it Japanese honey bees are rather aggressive in themselves. While European bee nests can be controlled, a bee nest capable of defending itself against predators would be adding more danger to this already dangerous idea. As for native bees, I seriously doubt it. Do you know how native bees work? Honeybees have large nests on the outside that are easy to find and track. The only other eusocial bee in NA is the bumblebee, which nest underground in areas hard to find let alone track. As for the rest of the natives, they're solitary,meaning the invasion of a nest would result in maybe 10 deaths at most if you count developing eggs, and their nest entrances are probably much too small for the hornet to even enter. there's also the fact that japanese hornets are adapted to seek out bees they already know store valuable resources. They will most likely not track down mysterious insects that they're not sure will yield any reward. Meanwhile Japanese bees would more than double the already intense competition between native bees and honeybees.

[RushmoreAnts]

 there are people scared of cockroaches and mice as well. Phobias without much reason besides small personal experiences and social culture influence

What about ants..............

[ponerinecat]

Yup. Same basis, taught to despise them by social norms.

[NickAnter]

Well, Washington is the ideal place for them to spread. Miles and mile of wilderness, where they won't be caught. They will decimate native wasps, and probably native bees, birds, and will kill more people. Also, honeybees kill native bees indirectly. These hornets will kill them directly, giving them no chance whatsoever. They aren't fluffy little bunnies(which by the way do cause trouble in many places)

[ponerinecat]

Well, Washington is the ideal place for them to spread. Miles and mile of wilderness, where they won't be caught. They will decimate native wasps, and probably native bees, birds, and will kill more people. Also, honeybees kill native bees indirectly. These hornets will kill them directly, giving them no chance whatsoever. They aren't fluffy little bunnies(which by the way do cause trouble in many places)

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH, how many times do I have to say this, they pose minimal threat to native bees. Wasps, maybe, birds, maybe, people, maybe, (if they're stupid) but they certainly won't wipe the population away. Answer me this, how come there are plenty of wasps and bees and birds in their native habitat? They haven't evolved any defenses, so why haven't these "murder hornets" wiped out all life in Asia? They will simply be another minor predator, unless you're a European honey bee.

[NickAnter]

We don't know how much of a threat they will pose to native bees. Those species in their area have lived around them for millennia they know how to act, the bees and wasps here don't. Just look at Polistes dominula. They push away native species. And they are nowhere near as bad as these.

Edited by NickAnter, May 5 2020 - 9:02 AM.

[TheMicroPlanet]

 

Well, Washington is the ideal place for them to spread. Miles and mile of wilderness, where they won't be caught. They will decimate native wasps, and probably native bees, birds, and will kill more people. Also, honeybees kill native bees indirectly. These hornets will kill them directly, giving them no chance whatsoever. They aren't fluffy little bunnies(which by the way do cause trouble in many places)

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH, how many times do I have to say this, they pose minimal threat to native bees. Wasps, maybe, birds, maybe, people, maybe, (if they're stupid) but they certainly won't wipe the population away. Answer me this, how come there are plenty of wasps and bees and birds in their native habitat? They haven't evolved any defenses, so why haven't these "murder hornets" wiped out all life in Asia? They will simply be another minor predator, unless you're a European honey bee.

 

HOW DARE YOU!!! Everyone knows that AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH is a sigh of relief and AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH is a scream of terror!

[mbullock42086]

 

IMO these were intentionally released to harm agriculture in the USA to further damage our economy.

  If these spread our only defense is importing the japanese honeybee-  I'm sure most of you know this already, but the european honeybee has no defense against this wasp.  The JAPANESE honeybee, however, clusters on scouts and furiously buzz to cook the wasp before it can mark the beehive.  These will decimate native bees too.  they are bad bad news.  will attack other animals too, these guys will prey on birds, mice, lizards, any kind of meat they can find.  VERY bad invasive.

Really, have you not read the previous posts? These hornets will pose some danger but importing more honeybees will be even worse. They will almost certainly begin to decimate native bees via competition. And from the sound of it Japanese honey bees are rather aggressive in themselves. While European bee nests can be controlled, a bee nest capable of defending itself against predators would be adding more danger to this already dangerous idea. As for native bees, I seriously doubt it. Do you know how native bees work? Honeybees have large nests on the outside that are easy to find and track. The only other eusocial bee in NA is the bumblebee, which nest underground in areas hard to find let alone track. As for the rest of the natives, they're solitary,meaning the invasion of a nest would result in maybe 10 deaths at most if you count developing eggs, and their nest entrances are probably much too small for the hornet to even enter. there's also the fact that japanese hornets are adapted to seek out bees they already know store valuable resources. They will most likely not track down mysterious insects that they're not sure will yield any reward. Meanwhile Japanese bees would more than double the already intense competition between native bees and honeybees.

 

They attack bumblebees and several are endangered and threatened in the USA, particularly the northwest states.  Maybe you should research them a bit more.  i already found pics of them killing bumblebees.

  asian hornets don't locate hives by sight, they locate them by SCENT

[ponerinecat]

We don't know how much of a threat they will pose to native bees. Those species in their area have lived around them for millennia they know how to act, the bees and wasps here don't. Just look at Polistes dominula. They push away native species. And they are nowhere near as bad as these.

We don't know, but we can surely guess with a lot of confidence. Bees there, like I said, don't react in any special way. They are nearly identical in terms of behavior to our bees. there's no special anti-hornet behaviors or chemicals or anything possessed by the majority of Asian natives.

[mbullock42086]

besides my whole point is they will ruin our agriculture, alot of our produce comes from the northwest, sonoma, monterey county, etc.  they use european honeybees to pollinate stone crops because its nice and cool and they do best in that climate.

  the wasps pose a threat to US.  at this point either way, bees are gonna die, but importing japanese honeybees is the lesser loss.  sorry man, it's a lose-lose situaiton regardless, but i'd rather lose less than MORE.

[ponerinecat]

 

 

IMO these were intentionally released to harm agriculture in the USA to further damage our economy.

  If these spread our only defense is importing the japanese honeybee-  I'm sure most of you know this already, but the european honeybee has no defense against this wasp.  The JAPANESE honeybee, however, clusters on scouts and furiously buzz to cook the wasp before it can mark the beehive.  These will decimate native bees too.  they are bad bad news.  will attack other animals too, these guys will prey on birds, mice, lizards, any kind of meat they can find.  VERY bad invasive.

Really, have you not read the previous posts? These hornets will pose some danger but importing more honeybees will be even worse. They will almost certainly begin to decimate native bees via competition. And from the sound of it Japanese honey bees are rather aggressive in themselves. While European bee nests can be controlled, a bee nest capable of defending itself against predators would be adding more danger to this already dangerous idea. As for native bees, I seriously doubt it. Do you know how native bees work? Honeybees have large nests on the outside that are easy to find and track. The only other eusocial bee in NA is the bumblebee, which nest underground in areas hard to find let alone track. As for the rest of the natives, they're solitary,meaning the invasion of a nest would result in maybe 10 deaths at most if you count developing eggs, and their nest entrances are probably much too small for the hornet to even enter. there's also the fact that japanese hornets are adapted to seek out bees they already know store valuable resources. They will most likely not track down mysterious insects that they're not sure will yield any reward. Meanwhile Japanese bees would more than double the already intense competition between native bees and honeybees.

 

They attack bumblebees and several are endangered and threatened in the USA, particularly the northwest states.  Maybe you should research them a bit more.  i already found pics of them killing bumblebees.

  asian hornets don't locate hives by sight, they locate them by SCENT

 

All wasps are predatory, remember that. Simply because they are found eating bumblebees doesn't mean they are a major threat. All wasps will hunt down smaller insects than them if possible, flying insects being a favorite small prey item. Asian hornets are larger and thus will view any passing bumblebee as potential prey. Spiders and birds eat bumblebees too, are they decimating the populations? As for locating hives, yes, scent. They fly out and smell honeybee hives, which have a very strong smell due to the sheer amount of resources inside, all lying out in the open with little protection. Honeybees live underground with minimal wax and honey, just enough to sustain the colony. Entrance tunnels can be up to a few feet long. I think that's more than enough to smother the majority of the scent. 

[ponerinecat]

besides my whole point is they will ruin our agriculture, alot of our produce comes from the northwest, sonoma, monterey county, etc.  they use european honeybees to pollinate stone crops because its nice and cool and they do best in that climate.

  the wasps pose a threat to US.  at this point either way, bees are gonna die, but importing japanese honeybees is the lesser loss.  sorry man, it's a lose-lose situaiton regardless, but i'd rather lose less than MORE.

Native bees can pollinate too. The loss of honeybees will provide a temporary setback but native bees can easily fill that role. Keep in mind many agricultural products actually depend on native bees and are incapable at the present moment of being sustained by honeybees. Importing japanese honey bees may boost the economy but the relationship between native bees and plants as a major pollinator will collapse. I think the environments more important. 

[mbullock42086]

 

besides my whole point is they will ruin our agriculture, alot of our produce comes from the northwest, sonoma, monterey county, etc.  they use european honeybees to pollinate stone crops because its nice and cool and they do best in that climate.

  the wasps pose a threat to US.  at this point either way, bees are gonna die, but importing japanese honeybees is the lesser loss.  sorry man, it's a lose-lose situaiton regardless, but i'd rather lose less than MORE.

Native bees can pollinate too. The loss of honeybees will provide a temporary setback but native bees can easily fill that role. Keep in mind many agricultural products actually depend on native bees and are incapable at the present moment of being sustained by honeybees. Importing japanese honey bees may boost the economy but the relationship between native bees and plants as a major pollinator will collapse. I think the environments more important. 

 

that's FALSE you're thinking of the alfalfa bees .  Our farms DEFINITELY use european honeybees to pollinate their crops- they get honey to sell, good pollinators.  I'm sorry man but your inability to consider the problems they pose to us right now in our weakened state with farms in serious trouble already terrifies me.

[NickAnter]

  I don't agree with importing Japanese honeybees. Just look at all the examples where when you introduce an invasive to get rid of an invasive. I just don't think it is a good idea, as we have many historical examples of this going wrong.  Just look at the cane toad in Australia. Of course, I don't think that Japanese honeybees would be anywhere near that bad, but it's something to think about.

[NickAnter]

At least they probably won't invade the midwest. That would be bad.

[RushmoreAnts]

At least they probably won't invade the midwest. That would be bad.

     And to those who complain about the cold........... 

[ponerinecat]

 

 

besides my whole point is they will ruin our agriculture, alot of our produce comes from the northwest, sonoma, monterey county, etc.  they use european honeybees to pollinate stone crops because its nice and cool and they do best in that climate.

  the wasps pose a threat to US.  at this point either way, bees are gonna die, but importing japanese honeybees is the lesser loss.  sorry man, it's a lose-lose situaiton regardless, but i'd rather lose less than MORE.

Native bees can pollinate too. The loss of honeybees will provide a temporary setback but native bees can easily fill that role. Keep in mind many agricultural products actually depend on native bees and are incapable at the present moment of being sustained by honeybees. Importing japanese honey bees may boost the economy but the relationship between native bees and plants as a major pollinator will collapse. I think the environments more important. 

 

that's FALSE you're thinking of the alfalfa bees .  Our farms DEFINITELY use european honeybees to pollinate their crops- they get honey to sell, good pollinators.  I'm sorry man but your inability to consider the problems they pose to us right now in our weakened state with farms in serious trouble already terrifies me.

 

Yes, we use them, no, we don't need, them. And I'm not talking about alfalfa bees. Look at squash bees for instance. One of the best pollinator of gourds and solely reliant of said plants. If you were to remove that role as a squash pollinator, there goes the bee, and the plant is worse off. Oftentimes they pollinate every single squash flower so quickly that the honeybees that do happen to visit by chance are simply there for taking the nectar and pollen, and don't help with pollination at all. I quote from https://nature.berke...-California.pdf "we found that native bees often make up a high proportion of the total bee visits (i.e., visits that include honey bees), suggesting that native bees can be as or more important than managed honey bees for these crops" and "In watermelon, a crop that requires multiple bee visits and deposition of 500–1,000 pollen grains for production of a marketable fruit, we found that the native bee community alone could provide sufficient pollination for the crop. This ability, however, depended on the diversity and abundance of bees in the community, which in turn was dependent on the abundance of native habitat in the area." Examples where honey bees are completely obsolete include "crops typically thought of as “self-pollinated” benefited substantially from native bee visitation. Tomato flowers produce no nectar, and their pollen can only be accessed from poricidal anthers by high frequency vibration. Honey bees are unable to vibrate the flowers, and thus obtain few rewards from tomato flowers (hence the low proportion of honey bee visits, as shown in Table 1). However, bumble bees and other bees (e.g., Anthophora urbana) can obtain the pollen through vibration, and can often be found exploiting this honey bee-free niche." This ties in with the environment itself and the preservation of native plants. "California’s native bees make an important contribution to crop pollination. This contribution could become even more valuable as an “insurance policy” if honey bees become more scarce or fail altogether. We have also shown that all of these native bee species occur in wild habitats and show some degree of dependence on the native California flora. Finally, the destruction of native habitat in the Central Valley appears to be related to a decline in the diversity and abundance of native bees found there, along with a concomitant reduction in the crop pollination services they provide." As https://plants.usda....Pollinators.pdf states, "Native bees, however, significantly contribute to crop pollination – and, in some cases, provide all of the pollination." However this is slightly off topic. The point is that honey bees are not at all required for pollination.

[ArmyAntz]

 

Well, Washington is the ideal place for them to spread. Miles and mile of wilderness, where they won't be caught. They will decimate native wasps, and probably native bees, birds, and will kill more people. Also, honeybees kill native bees indirectly. These hornets will kill them directly, giving them no chance whatsoever. They aren't fluffy little bunnies(which by the way do cause trouble in many places)

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH, how many times do I have to say this, they pose minimal threat to native bees. Wasps, maybe, birds, maybe, people, maybe, (if they're stupid) but they certainly won't wipe the population away. Answer me this, how come there are plenty of wasps and bees and birds in their native habitat? They haven't evolved any defenses, so why haven't these "murder hornets" wiped out all life in Asia? They will simply be another minor predator, unless you're a European honey bee.

 

Actually its ignorant of you to think that they pose minimal threat to native bees. 

 

Animals that evolved living around these hornets obviously adapted to survive with them over the course of thousands of years. It's not rocket science, anyone should be able to figure that out. Japanese bees will swarm and cover single hornets, cooking them alive, as an effective defense strategy.

 

Solenopsis invicta live with plenty of diverse wildlife in the Pantanal. if they're so devastating in the US and Australia, why haven't they wiped out life in South America and destroyed countless amounts of infrastructure? What about Argentine Ants? What about the Burmese Pythons introduced to Florida?

 

^That's how you sound. Invasive species are unrecognizable to native populations. Army ants, for instance, would wipe out almost all the life in tropical countries where they don't currently exist because native animals didn't evolve dealing with such a threat. If no animals ever evolved a response to predators (natural selection), they would have all died out, and therefore the predators would have too, meaning they wouldn't exist today. But obviously that isn't the case.

 

 

The same applies here, the hornets wouldn't kill off entire bee populations obviously, that's very very unlikely, but the fact that you're saying they pose minimal threat doesn't make sense.

 

Through the food web, certain things will prevent one species from ever truly becoming dominant. When they are put in an environment where there is nothing stopping them from becoming dominant, they ruin the food web. I'm sure you know that though.

[ponerinecat]

  I don't agree with importing Japanese honeybees. Just look at all the examples where when you introduce an invasive to get rid of an invasive. I just don't think it is a good idea, as we have many historical examples of this going wrong.  Just look at the cane toad in Australia. Of course, I don't think that Japanese honeybees would be anywhere near that bad, but it's something to think about.

Yes, this is on the right track. never import other species to solve problems created by importation in the first place. We imported weasels to a rabbit infested island to control the rabbit population, imported by humans, and now the native birds are nearly wiped out. Or how about cane toads? Cane toads were originally meant to consume beetles, which in fact were imported by humans in the first place. Now they decimate native animals through competition and outright predation.

[ponerinecat]

 

 

Well, Washington is the ideal place for them to spread. Miles and mile of wilderness, where they won't be caught. They will decimate native wasps, and probably native bees, birds, and will kill more people. Also, honeybees kill native bees indirectly. These hornets will kill them directly, giving them no chance whatsoever. They aren't fluffy little bunnies(which by the way do cause trouble in many places)

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH, how many times do I have to say this, they pose minimal threat to native bees. Wasps, maybe, birds, maybe, people, maybe, (if they're stupid) but they certainly won't wipe the population away. Answer me this, how come there are plenty of wasps and bees and birds in their native habitat? They haven't evolved any defenses, so why haven't these "murder hornets" wiped out all life in Asia? They will simply be another minor predator, unless you're a European honey bee.

 

Actually its ignorant of you to think that they pose minimal threat to native bees. 

 

Animals that evolved living around these hornets obviously adapted to survive with them over the course of thousands of years. It's not rocket science, anyone should be able to figure that out. Japanese bees will swarm and cover single hornets, cooking them alive, as an effective defense strategy.

 

Solenopsis invicta live with plenty of diverse wildlife in the Pantanal. if they're so devastating in the US and Australia, why haven't they wiped out life in South America and destroyed countless amounts of infrastructure? What about Argentine Ants? What about the Burmese Pythons introduced to Florida?

 

^That's how you sound. Invasive species are unrecognizable to native populations. Army ants, for instance, would wipe out almost all the life in tropical countries where they don't currently exist because native animals didn't evolve dealing with such a threat. If no animals ever evolved a response to predators (natural selection), they would have all died out, and therefore the predators would have too, meaning they wouldn't exist today. But obviously that isn't the case.

 

 

The same applies here, the hornets wouldn't kill off entire bee populations obviously, that's very very unlikely, but the fact that you're saying they pose minimal threat doesn't make sense.

 

Through the food web, certain things will prevent one species from ever truly becoming dominant. When they are put in an environment where there is nothing stopping them from becoming dominant, they ruin the food web. I'm sure you know that though.

 

No, no no. Honey bees evolved that response to direct targeting as a preferred food item. Most native Asian bees are at most picked off one by one as a simple small boost in larval protein. The Burmese python isn't a threat in its native habitat because things will eat it, while it has no predators in it's invaded areas. Nothing ever evolved to specifically ward off them. Argentine ants are so destructive because invasive populations came from a minimal amount of ancestors, thereby causing massive super colonies. In their natural habitat infighting keeps population under control. As for the red imported fire ant, the animals here were simply not prepared for it. They came from jungles, which are the most diverse terrestrial habitats and therefore the most competition intense. Residents there were equally aggressive and thus able to compete successfully. In that case it isn't the ant itself but the environment in which it developed. Think of it as having a major league player being moved to play against some schoolkids. Native animals didn't need to defend themselves because they naturally had evolved to be equally aggressive from environmental factors.