When the topic of invasive species comes up, most people wouldn’t think a type of hornet as being an invasive predator that needs to be controlled. That, however, is what is happening in the United States, and in South Carolina, right now.
In the beekeeping community, it is known that hornets are a natural predator to bees. The hornets that are native to the United States will see a bee while out in the wild and do its work as a predator and kill that bee, then move on with what it was doing before.
The Yellow Legged Hornet, which is not native to the United States, has a similar threat to humans as are other hornets native to the U.S., but works a little differently in how it is a predator to bees.
Yellow Legged Hornets will do what is known as “hawking,” which is where they will see a bee while flying around, but won’t immediately attack the bee. Instead, it will follow the bee to see where that bee’s hive is.
This hornet, sometimes also bringing other Yellow Legged Hornets from its hive along with it, will hover near the entrance of the bee hive and wait as bees some and go from their hive, and kill them as they do so, acting as a “hawk” by doing this.
This not only diminishes the bee hive that these hornets are hawking, it prevents the bees from pollinating, creating honey, forge and brooding Because the Yellow Legged Hornets are an invasive species, the bees in the United States are unable to deal with the hawking and their numbers are being diminished in the places where these hornets are.
The first sighting of these hornets was in August of 2023 in Georgia, where it is thought that these hornets were brought into the United States through a shipping container. The authorities in Georgia have worked to contain the spread of the hornets since they are so detrimental to the bee community, and after seeing other countries not work to contain them, the bee communities in those countries have been harmed greatly.
In Nov. of 2025, the Yellow Legged Hornet was spotted in York County, SC, over 150 miles from the original population that popped up in 2023, confirming that these hornets will likely continue to spread around the United States with human assistance, like through shipping containers.
Many Americans are unaware of this invasive hornet species because they are similar in threat to humans as hornets native to the states, but beekeepers around the country are worried about what the spread of the Yellow Legged Hornet will do to the bee population in our country.
If you see any yellow legged hornets in Spartanburg or anywhere else, feel free to report the sighting so that their spread can continue to be monitored and, in some cases, so that the nest of the hornets could be found to help in the extermination and containment of this invasive species.
