October 3, 2020

"Department scientists then tried to glue a tracking device to the [murder] hornet, in hopes of following it back to its nest. But the glue didn’t dry fast enough..."

"... and the tracking device slipped off just as they were about to release the hornet. The glue also stuck to the hornet’s wings, rendering it unable to fly....'You do have to be very patient and wait till it dries,' [said Washington State Department of Agriculture entomologist Sven Spichiger. 'But when you’re handling an Asian giant hornet, obviously, it doesn’t want you handling it.' He said the department had peppered the area with 30 traps baited with orange juice and rice wine in an effort catch and tag another live hornet."

From "Washington State Officials Hunt for Colony of 'Murder Hornets'/The search has taken on particular urgency as the Asian giant hornets are about to enter their 'slaughter phase,' during which they kill bees by decapitating them" (NYT).

Rice wine, presumably, because they're from Asia. From last May in the NYT: "In Japan, the ‘Murder Hornet’ Is Both a Lethal Threat and a Tasty Treat/Long before the insects found their way to American shores, some Japanese prized them for their numbing crunch and the venomous buzz they add to liquor."
The giant hornet, along with other varieties of wasps, has traditionally been considered a delicacy in this rugged part of the country. The grubs are often preserved in jars, pan-fried or steamed with rice to make a savory dish called hebo-gohan. The adults, which can be two inches long, are fried on skewers, stinger and all, until the carapace becomes light and crunchy. They leave a warming, tingling sensation when eaten.
The Japanese know how to do stuff. We're out here trying to glue electronic devices to the little devils, and they are finding sophisticated, elegant ways to savor the carapace. I'd like "Savor the carapace!" to replace "Save the liver!" in a remake of this classic comedy routine....


24 comments:

Yancey Ward said...

The obvious solution to the murder hornet pandemic is the shut down Washington State once more. Oregon, too, and maybe California.

Daniel Jackson said...

"The Japanese know how to do stuff."

Yes; yes, they do. Or, so I have been told. Very cleaver, eh?

ga6 said...

You do not know what a real hangover is until you experience one on bootleg sake in Gotemba.

cfs said...

Trust the scientists!

Fernandinande said...

I hope they don't fly through a flaw in the flue.

rcocean said...

They kill bees. To hell with them. Kill 'em all, and let God sort 'em out.

Michael K said...

In my engineer days at Douglas, we were in a trailer for several months as the wind tunnel building was built. Engineers being what they are, some of the guys in the trailer would catch flies buzzing around us and glue little flags on a thread to them. The flies would fly around like little sky writers and, if they got too close, you could grab the little flag and throw the fly away.

traditionalguy said...

At last a new name for the DC Redskins: the Murder Hornets.

mikee said...

Japanese cuisine has multiple categories of things they insist are wonderful, either as a rare treat (dining on now-endangered species), or one that might kill you if prepared the least bit improperly (fugu), or a dish that will make you "strong" (usually said with a phallic representation of a fist and forearm help upright and quivering, and applied to everything protien-rich but vile tasting). The history of these dishes is that starvation was a possibility in Japan within living memory, and often enough in the island nation's long history, that anything and everything there that can be eaten will be eaten.

I, for one, ate everything presented to me in Japan and loved it all, except for abalone sushi, which most closely resembled chewing on a salty shoe sole. The custard with a chicken heart boiled in its center, the live prawn warmed to squirming in the sushi chef's hands, the eel BBQ, the urchin roe, the buns full of many things, the raw egg on rice at breakfast, the strange sausages on sticks, goodness it was wonderful.

madAsHell said...

Orange juice, and rice wine

Yellowjackets can lift a pretty good chunk of salmon off the picnic plate.

rcocean said...

I've never met a hornet or wasp that wasn't a complete bastard. They not only sting you without provocation, they'll chase you and sting you some more, just for the fun of it.

Psota said...

The Japanese know how to "do stuff" because their science does not consist of media driven apocalyptic scenarios to frighten voters to vote for Democrats.

chuck said...

Shhh, be vewy, vewy quiet. I'm hunting murder hornets!!

Mid-Life Lawyer said...

Famous last words. Ackroyd really nailed that performance.

ALP said...

Hmmm. My partner is half Japanese. He loves to go on rants about the feral hog population in the US - advocating that we should be hunting them down and EATING them.

Must be in the DNA...got a pesky life form causing problems? Cook it and eat it!

Narayanan said...

wouldn't putting masks on the hornets prevent them biting off bees heads?

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

when SNL was gutt-funny. ah - them days er gone.

J. Farmer said...

The Japanese know how to do stuff.

But I've been assured that diversity is our greatest strength. Monocultural, homogeneous Japan is clearly encumbered by their lack of millions of blacks and Latinos. The Financial Times and The Economist have been lecturing Japan for years that their only hope for survival is mass immigration from the Global South, but the Japanese seem to have this insane idea that there might be a few things more valuable than an extra half-percent GDP growth. Poor dumb bastards.

Maillard Reactionary said...

mikee: re "...the strange sausages on sticks..."

I would not be so quick to assume that they were sausages.

tim in vermont said...

"but the Japanese seem to have this insane idea that there might be a few things more valuable than an extra half-percent GDP growth. Poor dumb bastards.”

Here the idea is to ship the decent jobs that the deplorables could do off to other countries while our elites make even more, while sending the kids of the deplorables off to fight in wars intended to increase the graft possibilities for our ruling class. It’s the Democrat platform, and if we were talking about another country, so emotion was out of the argument, it would be easy to convince people of that sorry fact. The Europeans are in on it too. Everybody wants the children of certain Americans to fight in their wars while they sell their parents out economically.

Ambrose said...

"Honey I glued the kids to a murder hornet" - coming this Fall!

Bunkypotatohead said...

Typical government ineptitude. The "scientists" blame the glue for not drying quickly enough. Rather than blaming themselves for not allowing enough time for the glue to dry.
But we're supposed to turn to the next article and believe Dr. Fauci is infallible.

mikee said...

Maillard Reactionary: There's a story behind your warning. And with a name like that, it just has to be a juicy tale. Do tell.

Maillard Reactionary said...

mikee: I used to travel to Japan a lot on business. I had a colleague who was eager, extremely eager, to try yakitori, the grilled chicken on a stick that is popular there. On his first trip there, naturally, that is what he ordered. It turned out to be not chicken breast (which is what they would sell in the US in a Japanese place) but chicken gizzards. I recognized those little muscular nuggets right away, having greedily stolen so many from the giblet gravy pot as a child. My poor friend was chewing and chewing and chewing, and finally asked, "What was that?"

I told him that those were chicken assholes, that they were very popular in Japan. I'm not sure he believed me, but he did not order a second round. He stuck to nigiri after that.

His first experience with a traditional Japanese-style toilet was also hilarious, but that would take us too far afield just now.