What does a hornet nest in a garage in Toledo and a laboratory in Spokane have to do with a person living in Atlanta with a severe allergy to insect venom? It is not as hard to connect the dots as it might appear.
One of the many tasks some entomologists around the country take on each year is the collection of thousands of bees, hornets, and wasps. These stinger-armed bugs are shipped off to a facility in eastern Washington where, in the case of a wasp, that tiny 2 to 15 micrograms of venom is removed. A microgram is the equivalent of millionth of a gram.
Scientists in the lab painstakingly collect this toxin-laden fluid from each insect and use it to formulate a vaccine that will protect the individual in Georgia, and many of the rest of the two million Americans that can experience a life-threatening reaction when stung by bees, wasps, or hornets.
That reaction can progress from hives to difficulty breathing, swelling of the throat and tongue, an erratic pulse, nausea, dizziness, the loss of consciousness, or in the most extreme cases, death. According to figures from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), nearly 100 people die in the U.S. each year from severe allergic reactions to insect stings, and the agency suspects that figure might be low, since some deaths due to this allergic reaction likely are erroneously attributed to heart attacks or sunstrokes.
"This is a program that saves lives, so it's very important that we get these nests when they are active and full at this time of year," said Russell Lamp, an Oregon-based entomologist who has been collecting the nests in the greater Toledo area for more than 30 years.
Stings from wasps, hornets, and bees kill more people in this country each year than snake bites, according to a study by Penn State University. Resistance to those severe allergic reactions to the venom in stings is built up over time through a series of injections that slowly introduce higher concentrations of the bee and wasp venom. The Mayo Clinic recommends that anyone who has had a serious reaction to insect venom consult with an allergy specialist about a regimen of immunotherapy and wear an alert bracelet identifying them as someone with this particular allergy.
Lamp said he is currently searching for the nests of hornets and yellow jackets so he can collect the adult insects for use in the vaccine program. He usually works to remove the nests at night, when most of the wasps or hornets will be inside. He wears a protective suit and uses carbon dioxide to anesthetize the ultra-aggressive insects.
Hornets and yellow jackets are both types of wasps, and sometimes the terms are used to describe the same or similar insects. While all yellow jackets are wasps, not all wasps are yellow jackets. When the term hornet is used, it is referring to the largest of the wasps.
Hornet nests are the large, gray, somewhat circular, oblong or football-shaped objects that are usually hanging from a tree limb or under the eaves of a building.
“We’d like to get out and collect as many hornet nests as we can right now, because with the weather changing, these nests are starting to go downhill and they won’t last much longer,” Lamp said. “What we really need are these large nests that are not too awfully hard to get to, and nests that haven't been messed with. If a nest has been sprayed, we can't use it, so it is critical to not hit the nest with any kind of spray."
Yellow jacket nests are usually found in the ground where a main entrance hole is connected to a series of tunnels, and the nest might contain thousands of individual insects.
“With the in-ground yellow jackets, those nests are peaking now, although we are not seeing as many as we usually do, because of the very wet spring we had. We usually find the in-ground yellow jacket nests in areas with sandy soil that is well-drained. You see very few of them in places with clay soil.”
Lamp said the Holland, Sylvania, and Maumee areas tend to have the best soils to support the in-ground nesting of yellow jackets. Lamp can be reached at 419-836-3710.
First Published October 8, 2019, 12:00 p.m.
