The Washington State Department of Agriculture and the USDA have declared the northern giant hornet, Vespa mandarinia, eradicated from Washington and the U.S. The agencies said this announcement comes after three years without confirmed detections.

The hornet poses a threat to honeybees and other pollinators, as the hornet can kill an entire honeybee hive in as little as 90 minutes; it is often referred to as the “murder hornet” due to this behavior. The sting from a northern giant hornet is more dangerous than that of a honey bee, according to a news release.

The northern giant hornet was first detected in British Columbia in August 2019 and confirmed in the U.S. in Washington state in December 2019. The agencies said that while the discovery of the hives was similar in location and time, DNA evidence suggested there were two different introductions, as specimens from each location appeared to originate from different countries.

The agencies said this result stems from a multiyear effort to find and eradicate the hornets, which began in 2019. It involved collaboration between state, federal and international government agencies as well as significant support from community members and groups, especially in Whatcom County.

“Without the public’s support for this effort, it is unlikely we would be announcing the eradication of northern giant hornet today,” Sven Spichiger, WSDA pest program manager, said in a news release. “All of our nest detections resulted directly or indirectly from public reports. And half of our confirmed detections came from the public. The people of Washington can be proud that we did this by working together.”

(Photo courtesy of USDA/Stacy Herron)

WSDA said it found and eradicated a single hornet nest in October 2020 and three nests in August and September 2021 in alder tree cavities. WSDA said it continued state and public trapping efforts through 2024 in Whatcom County. Despite trapping and continued public outreach, no additional hornets were detected in the area, the release said.

WSDA said a community member reported a suspicious hornet sighting in Kitsap County, south of Port Orchard, in October 2024. WSDA said it was never able to obtain the hornet. Without a specimen, WSDA officials cannot confirm the presence of a new county record for a species.

“All we can say is that the image appears to be a hornet of some kind. How it came to be in Kitsap County, we don’t know,” Spichiger said.

WSDA said it placed traps in the area and conducted outreach to encourage reports of additional suspected sightings. Neither trapping nor outreach yielded additional evidence of hornets in the area. WSDA said the agency will conduct trapping in the area in 2025 as a precautionary measure.

“USDA played a key role by providing critical funding, technology, personnel and research support, and scientific expertise that helped WSDA eradicate this pest,” said Mark Davidson, deputy administrator at USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. “By tackling this threat head-on, we protected not only pollinators and crops, but also the industries, communities and ecosystems that depend on them.”

A similar situation occurred in 2020 when a single hornet specimen was found in Snohomish County. DNA evidence ruled out that specimen as being related to the Whatcom County detections. No additional hornets were ever found in Snohomish County, the release said.

“Luckily, we were already on the lookout for hornets when they showed up in Washington in 2019,” Spichiger said. “Although they are now eradicated from the state, we’ll always be keeping an eye out for them and encourage community members to do the same. They got here once, and they could do it again.”