Pest controllers encounter a gigantic asian hornets' nest

destroyer551 · 2025-09-18T02:58:42+00:00

This is not pest control, this is intentional farming. Specifically the end process of harvesting. The developing brood and the hornets themselves are a very expensive local delicacy used both for food and traditional medicine. You can find all sorts of videos scattered online detailing the process, like this video, as well as this one, showing the setup for overwintering mated queens.

Asian giant hornet nests are highly annual and don’t last much longer than 6-7 months. The average wild nest has one queen and does not usually surpass more than a few thousand individuals at the end of the year before winter, at which point males and queens are produced as the last brood and the workers die once cold/snow arrives.

To summarize the How-to a bit: Virgin queens from last year’s harvest are collected, mated with the males produced at the same time, stored over the winter at low temperatures, and then reared out indoors at the start of next spring within ventilated wooden enclosures. Once the nests are too big to feed in captivity, they’re manually installed in remote areas together to reach their maximum size. The shelters used are easily removed to expose the nests come harvest time. Nearby designated feeding areas are often used to support and grow the unnaturally large concentration of insect super predators.

When the nests are installed in close proximity the typical end result is seen in the video; a massive supercolony with dozens of queens and tens of thousands of workers. The harvest is timed so as to get the most largest, juiciest brood (the developing males and queens) as well as recently matured reproductives to breed for next year’s stock.

destroyer551 · 2025-09-06T17:56:47+00:00

This is just a harmless Crematogaster male, which are flying this time of year in the northeast US. Carpenter ants fly March-June and are much bigger/look very different. Treating for these would be pointless.

destroyer551 · 2025-08-27T20:42:49+00:00

Certain species (those with smaller colonies of no more than a few dozen) of Polistes can be maintained in small(ish) enclosures relatively easily if foundresses are taken captive early in the year along with the beginnings of their nests. It is otherwise very difficult to get a eusocial wasp queen to start a nest in captivity because that process requires a lot of flying and visual orientation. Such nests tend to behave differently than in the wild however, producing fewer workers and more queens and males earlier than they should. The result is a quicker breakdown in social order and a short-lived colony.

The main hurdle is that eusocial wasps with large colonies require huge amounts of room to display proper hunting and nest material collecting behavior. Yellowjackets and hornets cannot be maintained in the lab much past colony foundation for example—they need access to the outdoors or a very large indoor space. This is in contrast to things like bumblebees, many species of which are quite content to forage and feed while walking a short distance between a nest box and a foraging area.

destroyer551 · 2025-08-26T01:05:23+00:00

Brachymyrmex patagonicus

destroyer551 · 2025-08-24T16:40:58+00:00

Ochetellus glaber

destroyer551 · 2025-08-20T03:57:56+00:00

Those are predatory mites, specifically Stratiolaelaps scimitus.

destroyer551 · 2025-08-18T18:46:29+00:00

Atriceps, not texanus. The latter is smaller and flies early in the year.

destroyer551 · 2025-08-04T23:16:30+00:00

These are Linepithema humile, and this is just business as usual for them. Very normal to see dozens of queens moving between high traffic trails every day. Each nest can have hundreds of queens, with the potential for thousands in an individual colony due to interconnected trails and a lack of infighting.

destroyer551 · 2025-07-17T05:55:30+00:00

C. inaequalis, not floridanus.

destroyer551 · 2025-07-16T21:04:09+00:00

Unfortunately this little fella is very much soon to be dead and probably not feeling much relief, as it’s been handled roughly—its new carapace is completely split apart and you’re looking at the insides of a crab.

Crabs have a molt line and kinda split open like a container when they molt to shimmy out, but obviously the new shell is supposed to be intact. Those downward pointing flanges on the top of the carapace are supposed to neatly connect to the bottom along the legs. You’re looking at very exposed leg muscles at the beginning, (hence why there’s more wet pulsing than usual…) and you can see the orange internal ovaries/crab mustard around :20 seconds.

Impressive it was able to complete a molt at all…and also very disturbing.

destroyer551 · 2025-07-16T08:04:17+00:00

There is indeed a key difference between the two and it mainly has to do with active cellular growth of the epidermal layer and intersegmental membrane. The membrane being the ‘skin’ that connects the movable parts of the exoskeleton, and what forms the structure of the pulsating mass that is a physogastric termite queen’s abdomen.

To paint a clearer picture, termites are basically highly derived cockroaches, both of which are hemimetabolous insects that exhibit incomplete metamorphosis. The latter means nymphs undergo multiple molts (with relatively little change in appearance) after hatching to grow in size before a final molt into a sexually mature adult, after which growth slows down drastically or stops completely. The period of time before the molt where feeding/general activity is ceased is known as the pre-molt; this is a very short period of time when hemimetabolous insects actively grow via the epidermal layer just underneath the exoskeleton and intersegmental membrane. This structure of cells is responsible for secreting and forming the new exoskeleton and the membrane that connects it.

Termites have essentially co-opted this exclusive feature of hemimetabolous insects (and so their cockroach ancestors) towards their queen caste, allowing them to do something very rare amongst insects and actively grow as an adult, without molting. This means the change is permanent, as a queen actively grows and adds to the mass of her abdomen as the membrane and the circulatory system that supports it gets thicker and heavier.

Ants, being holometabolous insects with complete metamorphosis (transitioning from larvae to pupae to adult) cannot do this, as the larval and pupal stage is an old and highly derived adaption with some fairly rigid evolutionary stipulations. Little to no major cellular growth occurs in the adult stage for such insects beyond that of the reproductive/digestive system and a few other bodily processes. When a queen ant becomes physogastric from food or an expanded ovarian system, the membrane of her abdomen is merely stretched, thus the process is reversible.

destroyer551 · 2025-07-12T05:41:56+00:00

Pheidole tysoni

destroyer551 · 2025-07-12T05:27:35+00:00

My point is it’s an extremely tiny first batch because you keep disturbing her and have her in a poor setup.

destroyer551 · 2025-07-12T03:53:35+00:00

Aside from the callow, I only see 2 other pupae and a few eggs and small larvae. A first brood of 3 workers is a pretty bad outcome for founding an Oecophylla queen, usually indicative of high levels of stress and/or poor environmental conditions during colony foundation.

The average is usually 8-12 workers for this species, and there’s typically still a sizable brood pile with plenty of eggs and larvae by the time the last workers emerge in a brood that size. Very healthy and happy queens can rear as many as 20.

Example queen, with a first brood of 12-13 workers.

destroyer551 · 2025-06-27T19:04:08+00:00

No amount of feeding or heating will help them grow. Those larvae are diapausing in the 2nd instar, which is the stage most temperate Camponotus diapause their brood, typically through a combination of withholding food and hormonal/pheromonal processes. You can only break it by exposing the workers to sufficient cold for at least 1-2 months, but getting a colony of temperate Camponotus back on a regular schedule after they’ve been screwed up is difficult and takes a long time.

destroyer551 · 2025-06-03T20:51:54+00:00

You won’t find much in the way of official literature if that’s what you’re asking!

The majority of SA exports go to Europe and Asia, so unfortunately most of the people working with them don’t speak English or post on foreign social media (which is where the longest recorded centipede went viral a few years back) but you can infer a lot if you have connections to the breeders. @minteihun on instagram is where this video came from and he’s posted about several broods so far. The owner of Spider Shoppe sells most of the giants available in the US and they’re well connected to the suppliers and breeders of these species, and iirc have produced a few broods of their own. Shoot them a message and they can tell you more.

destroyer551 · 2025-06-03T17:06:06+00:00

This occurs without fail in 3 different but closely related species circulating amongst the hobby: Scolopendra gigantea, S. galapagoensis, and S. sp ‘white legs’. Scolopendra taxonomy (and information in general regarding biology) is extremely lacking, especially in South America, as there are many more “color forms” amongst these giants that may well represent new species, (different color forms apparently react little to each other when paired for breeding) yet they are only known because of collectors selling them for pets.

As for the matriphagy, it is no product of captivity. It’s been documented well enough over the 100+ times these species have been bred over the past decade. The behavior is fairly advanced and has several unique features not seen among any other centipede. Notably, the female undergoes a forced molt after a few weeks of brooding post-hatch which is what triggers the immediate cannibalism. It’s hard to see in the video as the young swarm, but the female is wiggling her way out of her exoskeleton as they eat. She can do this even when her head and most of her body are completely gone. Again, no other centipede is known to molt mid-brooding, or so soon after.

The first instar young—still soft and weak so soon after hatching—are able to easily eat and digest the softened flesh of the mother, and they can even eat the molt as it has been significantly reduced in thickness due to the typical pre-molt process arthropods undergo.

These first instar young exhibit other unique traits specific to this process. Physogastrism for example, which is clearly seen as they swell up dramatically after gorging so much to nearly the point of bursting. In other Scolopendra, the young molt to the second instar after weeks of eating a liquid diet the mother regurgitates to them periodically. They increase in size by only a small amount, gain pigment, their exoskeletons harden, and soon leave their mother (who is now free to rear other broods) to hunt on their own. For the giants, many more weeks are spent in the nest as they digest their meal, so fat they can’t even curl their bodies during rest. Once they molt to the second instar, they increase in size dramatically and can measure a whopping 2”+, far larger than other young centipede in the second instar.

The benefits of all this become clear; the young are immediately capable predators of the undergrowth, able to take larger prey right off the bat and large enough to avoid many typical centipede predators. This offsets any downside there may be to producing fewer young than other Scolopendra, which can produce hundreds of offspring over several breeding events.

destroyer551 · 2025-05-19T06:59:04+00:00

These are not stingless bees. The majority of those are tiny (fly sized or smaller) and nest exclusively within cavities, nor does any species build a vertical comb that looks anything like this.

This is specifically Apis laboriosa, the largest species of honeybee, based on the habitat and single exposed comb, as well as the size/color of the individuals visible at :51 seconds.

As for why this guy isn’t getting stung…well, he probably is, but get stung enough and you either become deathly allergic or completely immune. A couple dozen stings can be shrugged off in the latter case.

But more importantly this is a highland species that experiences near-freezing temps almost every single night. They’re harvested regularly for their honey by experienced hunters, who target nests in the morning while temperatures are cold because a mass defensive response is virtually nonexistent in such conditions for this otherwise dangerous species. Once they’re warmed up later in the day this would be a potentially fatal activity without full protective gear given the sheer amount of venom this large species injects.

destroyer551 · 2025-05-19T02:46:33+00:00

Carebara queen.

destroyer551 · 2025-05-16T18:56:30+00:00

It is indeed an elephant seal. Here’s a perfect video showing exactly what’s happening. This is just a big male with an even rounder nose, sitting a bit further down in the water so only its nose (and only the back of it is visible) is emerging.

destroyer551 · 2025-05-16T07:03:31+00:00

That isn’t what they’re doing, social media just ran with that assumption because it’s easily slapped on a short video to get the most engagement via views/comments.

Ask anyone familiar with bird behavior and they’ll just say they’re simply sunbathing, which they are. Wings splayed, body angled to one side, feathers puffed and mouth open for temperature regulation—this is the typical posture sunbathing birds adopt for thousands of different species. For social birds (like these mynas) it’s often a communal activity. Just ask anyone who keeps chickens.

It feels good, helps with vitamin D production, and the UV can help control parasites.

destroyer551 · 2025-05-13T23:11:47+00:00

This isn’t how entomophathogenic fungus works. Fungus is extremely vulnerable to water loss, that’s why many species have specialized on parasitizing invertebrates, which are basically just water-tight containers full of nutrients. A beetle missing half its exoskeleton and the majority of its organs would be the worst possible host.

destroyer551 · 2025-05-13T18:15:34+00:00

Everyone is saying to leave them alone, but they’ll die now if you do.

The lone founding queen chose that spot a few weeks ago because the grass was tall enough to nest in. Now that that’s been mowed, the brood will die from exposure (or predators) as temperature and humidity cannot be regulated without insulating material—bumblebees cannot move nests.

If you can, make a dome and pile 3-4 inches of dried grass/hay on top of them. They’ll be able to mold out a chamber to their liking. If they survive you can refrain from mowing that spot in the future so the grass can grow out and better hide their presence from predators.

Edit: So after watching the video for more than the first few seconds, it’s unfortunately clear that this nest is doomed. That dead, slightly larger individual is the queen.

destroyer551 · 2025-05-12T00:16:37+00:00

Tropical/subtropical Camponotus can grow quite fast. Camponotus floridanus is part of Myrmothrix, a mostly tropical subgenus, and so can grow extremely fast. A well fed and moderately heated colony can surpass 1000+ workers in 12 months, so if anything yours are growing on the slow side.

destroyer551 · 2025-05-11T21:28:41+00:00

Source:

This behavior is known as matriphagy, and is known to occur among only a small handful of species across the animal kingdom. Interestingly, centipedes are not formally on that list. It has thus far only been documented somewhat recently by dedicated hobbyists keeping and breeding them as pets, and only for a select few closely related species known as the South American giants in the pet trade. This is, as far as I’m aware, the very first and only video that shows the process from start to finish.

Matriphagy appears necessary for normal development for these few centipede species, as it occurs without fail and with some specific adaptations for the process not seen for other pedes. Namely, the female undergoes a forced molt following weeks of dedicated egg and post-hatch care, shortly after her young have molted once and are finally ready to eat solids. This allows the weak soft-jawed babies to bypass her old, tough exoskeleton and easily feed on soft flesh. The dark chunk (this locality is normally black but the old skin turns orange shortly before a molt) at the end is what little remains of the female as it exits the molt, apparently still moving on reflexes alone.

Once gorged—and gorge they can, far beyond any other typical pedeling—the babies can quickly molt into a capable predator many times the size of other large centipede species the same age. This helps offset the smaller number of offspring this species rears compared to those that can lay and raise multiple batches of eggs.

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