Agriculture officials are asking people in the Vancouver, Washington, area to report any sightings of a yellow-legged hornet, an invasive species native to Southeast Asia.

An agriculture inspector found a live yellow-legged hornet at the Port of Vancouver on April 30 while inspecting the cargo ship Mission Revival, which had sailed from South Korea.

The inspector killed it after documenting it.

Yellow-legged hornets have invaded areas ranging from Korea and Japan to Europe and the southeast United States.

They are smaller but more aggressive than the northern giant hornets — popularly, if unfairly, known as ‘murder hornets’ — that Washington state officials eradicated after a five-year campaign.

Agriculture agencies are vigilant about these insect invaders because of their potential to decimate populations of honey bees and other important pollinators.

In parts of Europe, they have reduced honey bee hives and honey production 30%.

“Given the serious nature of this hornet and its potential impact to honey bees, we are asking for extra vigilance from people in the Vancouver area,” Washington state Department of Agriculture entomologist Sven Spichiger said in a press release. “The public was critical to our ability to eradicate the northern giant hornet, and they will be just as important in responding to this introduction if there are more hornets in the area.”

Researchers say a hibernating, pregnant hornet can survive weeks of travel on a cargo ship to establish a colony after landing in a new part of the world.

The Vancouver sighting is the first in the United States outside of Georgia and South Carolina, according to Washington state Department of Agriculture spokesperson Karla Salp.

Salp said the Mission Revival sailed empty across the Pacific after delivering a load of sugar to South Korea.

“It had been sitting with the cargo hold roof open for ventilation while in port, so we cannot determine for sure whether the ship brought the hornet to the U.S. or if the hornet was at the port and flew onto the ship while docked and the cargo hold roof open,” Salp said by email.

Unlike the northern giant hornet, the yellow-legged hornet is aggressive and stings without being provoked.

“The much smaller Vespa velutina (yellow-legged hornet) is believed to be a much greater threat to honeybees and greater ecological impact,” British Columbia Provincial Apiculturist Paul van Westendorp, now retired, told KUOW in 2023.

Yellow-legged hornets are highly adaptable to different habitats and climates, according to Van Westendorp, and nest by the thousands.

Yellow-leggeds hunt on the wing, similar to dragonflies, making them a bigger threat to bees out searching for pollen.

The yellow-legged hornet found its way to the Korean port of Busan in 2003, then landed in the Japanese city of Fukuoka on Kyushu Island in 2022.

Once it invaded the main islands of Japan, the yellow-legged hornet prompted similar levels of alarm as the northern giant hornet did in Washington state.

“In Japan, we are having the same issue as in Washington state,” only with a different stinging invader, Tottori University entomologist Hideshi Naka told KUOW in 2023.

The states of Georgia, where the yellow-legged hornet arrived in 2023, and South Carolina are currently waging campaigns to eradicate the species.

John Ryan is a reporter with KUOW. This story comes to you from the Northwest News Network, a collaboration between public media organizations in Oregon and Washington.

It is part of OPB’s broader effort to ensure that everyone in our region has access to quality journalism that informs, entertains and enriches their lives. To learn more, visit our journalism partnerships page.

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2026/05/11/vancover-washington-yellow-legged-hornet/