The Good
Hornets are able to pollinate. They do not have a pollen basket like honey bees do, but pollen can still stick to the hairs on their bodies and be spread. Hornets eat a mixture of nectar, fallen fruits and insect. So, while it is much less likely for them to pollinate, they still can.
Hornets eat pests. Hornets are able to eat grasshoppers, cockroaches and other insects that people might consider pests. This means the more hornets you have around, the less creepy crawlies you'll see.
Hornets are typically not very aggressive. Should you hit their nest with a baseball bat? No. But, if you are just walking by, there is a good chance they wont bother you.
Hornets play a role in our ecosystem. People tend to think that food webs and interaction webs (the same thing as a food web, but it considers all levels of interaction) are pretty simple: grasshopper eats grass, hornet eats grasshopper, bird eats hornet. But they are not that simple. Hornets interact with many different prey items, any different potential predators and many competitors. Interaction webs are very complicated and difficult to imagine, but removing a species from the web can absolutely affect every other species of that web. If there is a bird that specializes in eating hornets, and the hornets die off, then so does that bird. Domino effects can stack up quickly. That is why, as cheesy as it is, every species matters.
They carry yeast cells in their guts. Yeast is used to make bread, wine and beer. Scientist know very little about how yeast acts in the wild. There could be secrets to "The Perfect Beer" hiding inside a hornets gut!
They recycle. Hornets, as well as yellowjackets, have been known to scavenge off of dead insects. The earth would just be covered in dead bugs if we did not have clean-up-crews such as hornets to help us out there.
The Bad
They sting. Hornets will sting you if they feel threatened, and because they carry a more potent venom, that sting will hurt. It doesn't help that hornets are capable of stinging multiple times with any harm to themselves, unlike many bee species.
They can be annoying. Nothing is much more annoying that enjoying an outdoor barbecue with a few buzzing uninvited guest.
Hornets can build their nests in inconvenient locations. Sometimes, a hornet queen will build her next in a house or barn.
The Ugly
Death. I couldn't find a statistic about deaths via hornets. However, I did find that the Asian giant hornet causes between 30-40 deaths per year in its native area. There certainly are not numbers like that in the USA, but it is clear that precautionary steps may need to be taken should an outbreak occur.
Hornets are able to pollinate. They do not have a pollen basket like honey bees do, but pollen can still stick to the hairs on their bodies and be spread. Hornets eat a mixture of nectar, fallen fruits and insect. So, while it is much less likely for them to pollinate, they still can.
Hornets eat pests. Hornets are able to eat grasshoppers, cockroaches and other insects that people might consider pests. This means the more hornets you have around, the less creepy crawlies you'll see.
Hornets are typically not very aggressive. Should you hit their nest with a baseball bat? No. But, if you are just walking by, there is a good chance they wont bother you.
Hornets play a role in our ecosystem. People tend to think that food webs and interaction webs (the same thing as a food web, but it considers all levels of interaction) are pretty simple: grasshopper eats grass, hornet eats grasshopper, bird eats hornet. But they are not that simple. Hornets interact with many different prey items, any different potential predators and many competitors. Interaction webs are very complicated and difficult to imagine, but removing a species from the web can absolutely affect every other species of that web. If there is a bird that specializes in eating hornets, and the hornets die off, then so does that bird. Domino effects can stack up quickly. That is why, as cheesy as it is, every species matters.
They carry yeast cells in their guts. Yeast is used to make bread, wine and beer. Scientist know very little about how yeast acts in the wild. There could be secrets to "The Perfect Beer" hiding inside a hornets gut!
They recycle. Hornets, as well as yellowjackets, have been known to scavenge off of dead insects. The earth would just be covered in dead bugs if we did not have clean-up-crews such as hornets to help us out there.
The Bad
They sting. Hornets will sting you if they feel threatened, and because they carry a more potent venom, that sting will hurt. It doesn't help that hornets are capable of stinging multiple times with any harm to themselves, unlike many bee species.
They can be annoying. Nothing is much more annoying that enjoying an outdoor barbecue with a few buzzing uninvited guest.
Hornets can build their nests in inconvenient locations. Sometimes, a hornet queen will build her next in a house or barn.
The Ugly
Death. I couldn't find a statistic about deaths via hornets. However, I did find that the Asian giant hornet causes between 30-40 deaths per year in its native area. There certainly are not numbers like that in the USA, but it is clear that precautionary steps may need to be taken should an outbreak occur.