European hornets were introduced into the US in 1840 and have spread across the continent. I took this photo near Murphy, North Carolina. I saw several hornets stripping the bark from a tree branch so I set-up my camera on a tripod with the lens about six inches from where the hornets were working. Several times the hornets appeared to be very annoyed by my presence and several of them buzzed around my head in a threatening manner. Fortunately, I was not stung. It was necessary for me to work in close proximity to them because I had to release the camera's shutter button with my finger. The image shows that the hornet has five eyes, two large compound eyes with thousands of lenses in each and three single-lensed simple eyes.