Don't call them 'murder hornets,' expert says – they're just really, really big

'Murder hornet' looks scary, and is scary CTV Science and Technology Expert Dan Riskin talks about why the Asian giant hornet is so dangerous.

KITCHENER — When you hear the term "murder hornet," it's understandable to feel a little bit of worry.

A homicidal flying insect that can get up to two inches long and can live in colonies of 1,000? Yikes.

But insect experts are shooting down the term, saying these hornets—called Asian giant hornets—are just that: hornets.

Prof. Gard Otis is an expert in honeybee biology and insect ecology and an adjunct professor at the University of Guelph, where he worked for 36 years.

"There is no such thing, I don't like that term. They are hornets, which is a group of wasps that tend to be fairly large," he says of the "murder" label.

"They're all Asian and European in origin. They are giant, they're huge – about two inches long, five centimetres long, so they are the giant Asian hornets and that's the name I'm sticking to."

The hornets have been spotted in parts of British Columbia and Washington State.

While disturbing a nest could have deadly consequences—their sting has a lot of venom and really hurts, Otis explains—for the most part, individual hornets aren't a concern for human safety.

READ - 'You're going to see stars': What it feels like to be stung by an Asian giant hornet

They could pose a risk to honeybee populations, though.

"We should be concerned because these are large, predatory wasps, they feed their larvae with protein—their larvae or their grubs, developing wasps—and protein usually comes from other insects," Otis says.

"Toward the end of the summer though, when their colony starts to get big, eventually they might reach 1,000 hornets in a single colony."

He says that as the colonies' food demands grow, they start to focus on other social insects like wasps and bees.

"They probably got the name 'murder hornet' because they can murder a colony of bees pretty quickly," he says.

The bees cultivated in North America don't have any defence against the hornets, which could lead to deadly consequences for the bees.

"The hornets find a colony, they recruit their sisters until there's maybe 20 or 30 of them at the entrance, and then they all attack en masse," Otis explains.

"When they do that, our poor little honey bees come to the entrance thinking that they're going to defend by stinging or biting and they just get chopped up and destroyed."

The wasps will then take the honey and baby bees back to their own colonies to feed their young.

So while there is reason to be concerned about their appearance in North America, it's not cause for panic.

For one thing, Otis says that the odds of the wasps being in Ontario to date are about the same as winning a $50 million jackpot.

"I'm not saying it's impossible, it's extremely unlikely," he says.

He also believes that beekeepers would be able to adapt to the threat if it materialized.

He points to Japanese beekeepers, who live in a climate where these Asian giant hornets thrive – they have developed traps and different ways of combatting the hornets to keep their bees safe.

Otis says there is a major focus on tracking and killing the Asian giant hornets if they're found here.

He says experts rely on citizen scientists to help get information on them, but so far all reports have been false.

If you think you've seen an Asian giant hornet, he says you should try to take a photo and send it to the Ministry of Agriculture or the University of Guelph's insect collection so they can identify it.

With reporting from Alexandra Pinto