Wasp stings on rise in Alaska; moving north
Published Monday, May 26, 2008
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Stumble It!ANCHORAGE -- Two summers ago, a huge hatch of wasps descended on Fairbanks.
University of Alaska Fairbanks entomologist Derek Sikes estimated there were about 10 times more yellow jackets that year than normal. Inevitably they bumped into people. School events were canceled because too many kids were getting stung.
For most victims, the wasp stings were merely painful, but for others they were life-threatening. The emergency room at Fairbanks Memorial Hospital that summer treated 178 patients with insect stings, about four times more than normal. Two men died.
Both the infestation and the deaths - the first cases of fatal anaphylaxis resulting from yellow-jacket stings ever documented in Fairbanks - suggested that something in Alaska might be changing. Was it possible the state's warmer climate was attracting more wasps? Or allowing more wasps to over-winter? Or resulting in bigger hatches all summer long?
It was hard to know, said Sikes, who serves as curator of insects at the University of Alaska Museum, since no one is actually counting wasps in Alaska - and one summer doesn't make a trend. But hospitals have been counting insect stings. And that, along with the wild wasp summer of 2006, gave an allergist in Anchorage an idea.
"That was the sentinel event for us to say, 'Ah! Let's take a look,'" said Dr. Jeffrey Demain, the director of the Allergy, Asthma & Immunology Center of Alaska.
What Demain and Sikes finally determined - reported this month in the Alaska Epidemiology Bulletin - is that insect stings in Alaska have been increasing steadily this decade. And they're occurring farther north.
Reviewing the billing records of all the state's Medicaid patients, a database that represents about 132,000 Alaskans, Demain found that there had been a seven-fold increase in insect stings in northern Alaska within the past decade - from an average of 16 people (per 100,000) per year between 1999 and 2001 to 119 people a year from 2004 to 2006.
All other regions of the state, with the exception of Southeast Alaska, rose as well. In the Interior, which includes Fairbanks, insect stings increased from 260 a year per 100,000 patients in 1999 to an average of 437 a year between 2000 and 2006.
Some of the most serious insect stings - such as those suffered by patients treated at the Allergy, Asthma and Immunology Center that Demain heads - have increased five-fold this decade.
"By the time somebody is coming to us, they've had a near-fatal event," Demain said. "They're not coming to us because they have a swollen hand."
Getting stung by a yellow jacket or a hornet can be painful for anyone - the Schmidt Sting-Pain Index rates it "similar to getting your hand mashed in a revolving door." But certain other people - roughly 4 percent of the population - are especially allergic to the venom of bees and wasps, Demain said.
"These chemicals not only can cause hives and itching, but they can cause airways to close; the larynx can close. You can have an asthma-like attack."
That's what doctors believe happened to the two fatally envenomed Fairbanks men - one who was 29, another who was 50 - in 2006, according to a scientific paper Demain and Sikes are currently preparing for publication.
That same summer, according to a story that appeared in the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, state wildlife biologist Jack Whitman set up three homemade yellow-jacket traps - each a plastic soda bottle half filled with water and whitefish - outside his Fairbanks home and caught 3,461 yellow jackets in four days.
There are now about 11 species of yellow jackets in Alaska, and many more species of other types of wasps, Sikes said. That far surpasses the total of two species of wasps observed a century earlier by the 1900 Harriman Expedition to Alaska.
The most prevalent wasps in Alaska are the common yellow jacket (Vespula vulgaris), which usually nests in rodent holes underground, and the aerial yellow jacket (Dolichovespula arenaria), which nests in trees and the eaves of houses and barns.
The time of year you'll most likely see them is late July, when all the female worker wasps - the only ones that sting - are out feeding on nectar and other insects. But right now is the best time to spot the much larger queen, crawling from her winter's nest.
"Last year we were seeing the first queens just about this time," Sikes said. "I've already seen bumblebee queens out."
It's possible, but not certain, that wasp populations are rising in Alaska, considering that average temperatures in northern Alaska have risen about 4 degrees Fahrenheit since 1950, Demain said.
"When we took a look, we found that (2006) was not a one-time deal - that the number of people being stung and requiring medical care because of stings was going up everywhere in the state," he said. "And has been going up steadily since 1999."
Community Discussion
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Enough is enough. Something has to be done before they make it into the endangered polar bear's habitat and start stinging the bears.
Please buy my "Save the bears, kill a wasp" T-shirt
Wait. Dont kill a wasp. Capture "humanely" and release them farther south.
Wasps have a right to life. What?
Alaskans are missing a big opportunity to produce large amounts of honeybees and honey..
..honeybees are having very difficult challenges to their health of their beehives in the Lower48, and scientists are puzzled and bickering about why the data suggests it's a manmade problem.
Monsanto is very nervous about this.
honey is a federally protected commodity on the stock index, distant thunder has a point...
I love the suble and sly refernece to global warming. "Was it possible that the state's warmer climate was attracting more wasps?" Gee, I dont know. Maybe they are attracted by scientists and news reporters that like to scare people.
How about going back more than 10 years. I remember a huge infestation in 1975. Is it possible that this is a cyclical event?
Last year was supposed to be terrible, and it wasn't. I didn't read any reports apologizing for scaring people and then being wrong.
Never do...
That's funny, I haven't even seen one bee this year. Do you think maybe there is a cycle and that maybe spring weather conditions have an impact. Wait did I say weather, that must mean global warming is the culprit. I've seen a lot of rabbits this year, maybe global warming is helping their populations as well.
or does it have to do with the fact the human population is growing here too... and the humans are coming farther north.
DistantThunder, it's funny to me you would compare honey bees to wasps. I've never had a honey bee bother me when I'm butchering a moose, and I've never gotten any honey out of wasp nest that I've knocked out of a tree. Just an observation. Wasps come, wasps go. Some years are good, some are bad. Seems pretty normal to me. Good day to all.
Other than those stingers, i have been noticing with the last two years that a number of ODD bugs and insects sprung up from NO WHERE, and there are NATS that survive at the beginning of OCtober and during this past spring Bees were flying around when flowers no not even blooming yet, but these strange occurances must be telling us something new to our Alaska's climate, which the state can waste money on this issue then there precious minerals where our health may be direct contact with these new species of insects or bugs, other than swasps or bees that people are allergic too, these new bug or insect species may have or be allergic for other humans, never know but who cares for our health anyhow since we are HAPPILY ruining our environment, O what its those who are rich enough to provide quality health care for themselves instead of the less fortunate having to wait in line or wait until our illness is sever enough to actually treat it, O WELL ANOTHER MORNING ANOTHER CUP OF COFFEE JUST GETTING RICH AND ENOUGH OTHERS MISERY, joking, get it politicians, oil developers and miners, thank you for noticing with all your EIS
Today Wasps, tomorrow tornados!
Dear Dorothy,
Hate Oz. Took the shoes. Find your own way home.
Signed, Toto
We have had more than usual wasps in the past few years so this year I have ordered "fake wasp nests" to hang up. Supposedly wasps are territorial and if they see another nest already in the area, they go to another area. They arrive tomorrow, SOOOO we'll see. I have NO idea but figured a few dollars to see if they work is worth it!!! I may have just given some people their daily laugh also! If so ... you are welcome!!!!
I am the wife of one of the victims. I got to watch my husband die of anaphlatic shock. We didn't know that he was allergic. I have all different kinds of traps and other preventive items. I can't hardly go outside in the summer without wearing protective clothing. Even the sound of the bees make me go crazy. I have talked to a few people who are allergic and don't even carry their epi-pens. Is that fair to the other family members? I read this article and got some understanding. I can't wait for the doctors report to come out to help me understand some of why my husband had to die.
My condolences. It must have been such and shock-so unexpected.
You're right. I am amazed at how many people know they are allergic and don't carry their epi-pen OR get it renewed every year...watch those expiration dates. I would hate to read that someone used theirs and it didn't do any good because it was expired.
I remember a year in the late 80's or maybe 1990 that we were slammed with alot of bees and wasps...the increased number of winter survivors was due to the deep snowfall providing insulation for their nests. It was unusually warm that winter also.
We need to have a really long, cold deepfreeze to get the Interior back to the way we knew it! Who knows, it could happen!
My comment doesn't have much to do with the overall article–just a quick comment about the unfortunate loss of the 29 year old man the article refers to. He was a good man, and came from a great family.
Definitely interested in reading the research
I used to own some honeybee hives, and would stake them out in fireweed...
I noticed my goats would sleep next to the hives..
the other insects: biting-botflies, mosquitoes, wasps, etc. didn't venture too close to the hives.
Just a quick comment.... Note in the discussion here in the comments that there is a need to distinguish between a bigger population of wasps and more species of wasps. I think the article stresses both whereas most of the discussion here is about the first. The second, more species, *could* be an indication of a warming climate up here. I won't say aye or nay as I have no clue about the adaptability of wasps in such regards. That there may be more wasps one year or another is a cyclical event with which anyone up here for a while is familiar. That there may be more KINDS of wasps is another thing altogether.
naw - th bears'll eat th extry wasps.
sorry to hear about yr losses ;[
the influx is due to the catastrophoc climate changes and the worlds greatest atrocity, i expect - it will balance out in a few years.
but if you commit the worlds greatest atrocity (th amazon burnoff) or dont defend th forest - and then try to commit planetary suicide by destroying the ozone layer - you can expect a few interim problems
;p
Nomo
(noticed yearight's post while grousing)
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