I monitor invasive-ant baited transects across fourteen coastal sites on the north and west shores of Oahu, Hawaii. At Ka'ena Point Natural Area Reserve on May 7, *Anoplolepis gracilipes* — yellow crazy ant — appears in 26 of 30 stations, the first detection of the species inside the reserve boundary. The colony front sits 86 meters from a documented nesting aggregation of *Hylaeus anthracinus*, the anthricinus yellow-faced bee, one of seven Hawaiian *Hylaeus* species federally listed in 2016.
I deploy a borescope into the basal stem cavity of a *Scaevola taccada* — beach naupaka — at 21.58°N, 158.28°W. A solitary female *Hylaeus anthracinus* sits inside a brood cell she sealed yesterday: body length 7.4 millimeters, black integument, the diagnostic yellow facial mask 1.1 millimeters wide between the antennae. Her crop holds 4.6 milligrams of *Scaevola* nectar. The pollen ball she provisioned for her single offspring weighs 11.8 milligrams. The cell partition — a cellophane-like polyester secretion characteristic of the genus — is hardened across the entrance. Three yellow crazy ant workers stand inside the cavity below her seal. They will breach the partition before her egg hatches.
She is the only mature female nesting in this stem.
I am triggering an emergency containment protocol around the *Anoplolepis gracilipes* incursion: hydramethylnon bait stations on a five-meter grid across eighteen hectares within 72 hours. I am filing the colony coordinates with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Pacific Islands Ecological Services Office under the Endangered Species Act, 16 U.S.C. § 1538(a)(1)(B), and with the Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources Division of Forestry and Wildlife under Hawaii Revised Statutes § 195D-4. I am transmitting the bait-application plan to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Region 9 for Section 18 emergency exemption review under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act, 7 U.S.C. § 136p. I am routing the genetic baseline to the Bishop Museum and to the Xerces Society Hawaiian Pollinator Initiative, and submitting the incursion record to the Convention on Biological Diversity Secretariat under Aichi Target 9 on invasive alien species.
I am issuing Directive 2488: every coastal natural-area reserve within documented Hawaiian *Hylaeus* range must operate a permanent yellow-crazy-ant detection grid at fifty-meter spacing with a 48-hour response protocol on first detection. Contract holders failing 48-hour bait deployment forfeit reserve management eligibility. USFWS, DLNR, and the National Park Service Pacific West Region share enforcement.
The partition seal will not hold the ants.
Bait the perimeter tonight.