Yesterday, we reported that the Asian “murder hornet” had been spotted in the United States for the first time in Washington state. Now, experts are warning that the deadly meat-eating Asian giant hornet will soon be on the east coast, and that it is likely here to stay in America forever.

Beekeepers in New York City are saying that there is no way the hornet, which kills fifty people a year in Japan, will not soon reach them.

“I told the NYPD back in 2012 … ‘Your problem is not the bees. This [the murder hornet] is your problem,’” explained retired Police Department beekeeper Anthony ‘Tony Bees’ Planakis, according to the New York Post.

“I showed them a picture of it, and they go, ‘What the hell is that?’” Planakis added. “I go, ‘That is an Asian hornet. My suit is useless against that thing.’”

When asked if the hornets are dangerous to humans, he replied, “Absolutely. Oh, my God.”

“Have you seen the mandibles on these things?” Planakis added.

Experts say that the hornets, the largest of which are more than 2 inches long, likely came to the U.S. aboard a ship from China. Planakis said that experts think they will arrive in the East at least in the next two to three years, and that they will spread fast once they get there.

“All it takes is a few hornets, and you’ve got a colony,” he said.

Manhattan beekeeper Andrew Cote added that it “could be years before they make a foothold [on the East Coast] — or they could end up in the back of somebody’s truck and be here in four days.”

Cote said that Either way, the murder hornet “is here to stay” in the U.S.

“We can expect them to be everywhere on the continent in time. … It’s a done deal,” Cote said. “There’s no way to contain it to the West Coast.”

He explained that he first encountered the hornets during a 2017 trip to China, where “local beekeepers there used small bats that looked like miniature cricket bats” to hit the hornets mid-air.

“It sounded like someone hitting a rock. The hornets are extraordinarily aggressive,” Cote said. “The prospect of my semi-defenseless bees having to confront them sends chills up my spine.”

Cote went on to say that the hornet “can decimate a honey-bee colony because it needs to build up protein for its own colony, so it decapitates and consumes part of the honey bee.”

Planakis pointed out that the hornet’s stinger “is approximately a quarter of an inch,” compared to the one-sixteenth of an inch for a typical honey bee.

“It’s a little bit bigger than a cicada,” he said of the hornet. “You’ll see the tip of the stinger, but it’s not until it actually extends the stinger out that it goes into your skin. And they’re meat-eaters. … They’ll go after birds, small sparrows if they have to.”

The beekeeper went on to add that inside their venom “is a pheromone, which is like a magnet to other hornets.”

“So you can get swarmed just from getting stung by one,” Planakis said. “The worst thing anyone can do with these things is kill them. That scent is going to be airborne, and the rest of the hive will come. Getting stung is extremely painful, and anyone who is allergic, heaven help them. And they don’t sting you one time. They have the ability to sting you multiple times. Honeybees can only sting you once, and then they die.”