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HONOLULU - Inspectors found dozens of insects inside one of four quarantined shipments of Christmas trees on Wednesday, including a worrisome German yellow-jacket wasp that does not exist in Hawaii.

Three other, unidentified species of "worker yellow-jacket wasps" were also found during the inspection, said Domingo Cravalho, inspection and compliance section chief for the state Department of Agriculture.

"They're unfamiliar to our entomologists," Cravalho said. "We also found other insects like stink bugs, beetles and the likes. Those were all collected and will be looked at."

The container was one of four that had been quarantined over the weekend when yellow-jacket wasps were discovered inside. The four quarantined containers were among 101 containers full of Christmas trees from the Pacific Northwest that represent Hawaii's first major shipment of the season.

Three of the quarantined containers held trees from Oregon-based grower Kirk Co., said Department of Agriculture spokeswoman Janelle Saneishi. The fourth belonged to Holiday Trees of Oregon, she said.

A second quarantined container full of Kirk Co. trees was to be inspected late Wednesday, Saneishi said. A third will be inspected on Friday.

The container full of Holiday Trees will be sent back to the company at its request, Saneishi said.

Kirk Co. employees unloaded each of the first shipment of 360 quarantined trees, shook them to look for insects and then repackaged each one after they passed inspection, Saneishi said. Holiday Trees does not have similar manpower in Hawaii to go through each tree under quarantine, Saneishi said.

The Kirk Co. trees that passed inspection can now be sold in Hawaii, she said.

The worrisome German yellow-jacket arrived in its refrigerated container dead, Cravalho said.

But the three unidentified yellow jackets "were well alive," he said. "They were moving about and they're still moving about. They and the other insects will be placed in alcohol immediately."

Inspectors planned to open each of the 24-foot shipping containers full of Kirk Co. trees in a special screened area designed to prevent insects from flying away, Cravalho said.

Inspectors also set out opened cans of tuna to attract any wayward yellow jackets, Cravalho said.

"They apparently like tuna," he said.

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