In any other year, reports of “murder hornets” being the US for the first time in history might instill some fear in citizens but with the news dropping in the midst of a pandemic that has crippled the economy and left people under strict lockdown orders, it appears to have been greeted with mostly humor.

‘Murder hornets,’ a nickname coined by researchers, popped up for the first time in the US in December when four sightings were verified by the Washington State of Agriculture (WSDA), according to a report from The New York Times.  

Asian giant hornets are the largest hornet species in the world. They destroy honeybee hives by killing the present bees and using them to feed their wrong. According to the WSDA, it only takes a few hornets to decimate a honeybee hive in a handful of hours.

The worry now is these hornets could spread in the US and have a serious effect on the bee population, which in turn negatively impacts the many crops that need bees for pollination. 

The WSDA has started an “aggressive trapping program” to stop the spread of the hornets and, hopefully, another potential crisis.

How have people responded to the news? Battleworn from Covid-19, the potential of a crisis with ‘murder bees’ have been taken surprisingly well.