A Year Out The Window
Murder Hornets??! RUKM?!! GMOOH!!!
The title refers to the fact that in 2020 several honeybee colonies in Washington state were found decimated by Asian giant hornets, a.k.a. murder hornets — a non-endemic species first spotted in the United States in December 2019 — with the public’s reaction to the news generally being, “Are you kidding me (RUKM), do we really need another plague this year, and one that, to boot, kills bees, which are already in danger (and, it should be noted, partly responsible for the pollination of about a third of the world’s food crops)?” The year 2020 just seemed to be getting worse and worse, which accounts for the “get me out of here” (GMOOH) portion of the title. Humorously, University of Illinois entomologist May Berenbaum made this tongue-in-cheek statement: “This year is unbelievable in a horrible, horrible way. Why shouldn’t there be murder hornets?”