Wearing triple-layered clothing and protective gloves, an exterminator removed a giant hornet nest that had embedded in an old car in Ohio.
Travis Watson pumped the nest full of insecticide as hundreds of the stinging insects swarmed around the car while attempting to escape.
The old vehicle had been sitting in the area for years as it was already rusting away and completely overgrown with bushes. The only way to move it out of the area is by getting rid of the nest first.
After pumping the nest with toxic fumes, the insect specialist started to rip the large nest apart chunk by chunk with his gloved hands. The intricate honeycombed interior was also visible.
He removed the pieces and placed them into a plastic bag. More hornets flew around and acted more aggressively as they tried to defend their queen inside.
Watson, who has worked in this field for over a decade, admitted that he was nervous while removing the enormous hornet nest.
He told The Washington Post. “On this one, I was nervous because I’ve never seen a European hornet nest this big. How could your adrenaline not be pumping when you’re doing something like this?”
While doing his job, hundreds of hornets swirled around him as he occasionally sprayed more of the insecticide smoke.
The nest, which Watson estimated to weigh around 3.5 pounds, filled many plastic bags. “I’m gonna need a bigger bag!” he exclaimed at one point.
“People must exercise extreme caution around a nest as they defend their nest aggressively,” he said.
Hornets usually build their nests in the hollows of trees. “Their queens emerge from hibernation in April and look for a well-protected place to build and they start it completely from scratch,” Watson explained.
“It takes a long time to get workers in the nest, to where the queen starts to only lay eggs and starting in July, it starts growing quite rapidly.”
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