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       A Washington State Department of Agriculture workers holds two of the dozens of Asian giant hornets vacuumed from a tree on Oct. 24, 2020, in Blaine, Wash.

       Elaine Thompson/The Associated Press

       Scientists from the Washington State Department of Agriculture say they’ve found the first so-called live murder hornet for the year.

       In a news release Thursday, entomologists say the Asian giant hornet was seen about a kilometre from the U.S.-Canada border.

       They say the hornet was reported by a Whatcom County resident on Wednesday and confirmed the following day where a photograph showed it attacking a paper wasp nest, about three kilometres from where the department eradicated a nest last October.

       They say U.S. and B.C. officials will be setting up traps in the area to catch a live hornet, tag it and track it back to its nest.

       The five-centimetre-long invasive insects are the world’s biggest hornets and prey on honey bees and other hornets – a small group can kill an entire honey bee hive in a matter of hours.

       While they are not particularly aggressive toward humans, in rare cases a person stung repeatedly by murder hornets could die.

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