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Velutina is confined geographically by the natural availability of prey which is why it is primarily a forested warm wetland insect. That's why for example it is largely constrained to coastal areas in Portugal and is only infrequently found in elevated inland terrain with an ecology more akin...

Very sage counsel. The best thing that beekeepers should be doing in the UK right now is setting up and observing monitoring stations using sweet bait (I'd recommend 1 part honey, 4 parts sucrose and 5 parts water) and reporting any sightings of velutina to the NBU especially from spring...

It's not a side alley. Vespines are an essential insect and their ecological value comes from controlling insect pests. Destroy vespines and you have to compensate by using vast amounts of pesticides to control the pests that go unpredated. Managing vespines is the best of both worlds because it...

or targetted and therefore judicious No it doesn't. Otherwise spring trapping would have worked in areas overrun with velutina which it hasn't. 50 nests will not only compete with each other and inhibit each other from developing sexuals they will also have to compete with native vespines. Ten...

Mazzamazda's contribution, #502: https://beekeepingforum.co.uk/threads/asian-hornets.55917/post-883682 Spring trapping is extensively used in areas manifestly overrun with velutina. It doesn't work and only makes things worse.

Can you substantiate that your trap doesn't retain vespine queens?

She will lay circa 500 eggs in her lifetime. Assuming 50% are female and there are 5 generations in one year (there can be as many as 8) this equates to 250× 250x250x250x250 female flies (for expediency I'll ignore male flies in the calculation). The average weight of a fly is 0.000007Kg. If all...

Typically flies that visit faecal matter and carrion such as bluebottles, greenbottles and the like.

Any idea what biomass a single mated filth fly will produce in one year in the absence of predation?

Well if you've found something then please share.

Taking no action? The NBU are doing a fantastic job eliminating nests. At present that is the only action that is required. Monitor, report, destroy. IF and only if the NBU are overwhelmed should further measures be taken. Setting spring traps now when velutina is not established is just pure...

I think you've got the wrong end of the stick. Because we have healthy native vespines there isn't the availability of prey currently and velutina currently struggles to produce sexual progeny. If we destroy native vespine species we will provide velutina with the prey it requires to propagate...

Which is a totally unrealistic and unattainable proposition which is why it shouldn't be entertained because it will help velutina become established. Good for trap sellers but bad for beekeepers. I concur that trapping would require participation everywhere by everyone not just beekeepers for...

Spring traping in Europe has failed to eradicate velutina. The reason lies in understanding population dynamics. A velutina nest will produce circa 1500 queens. Only one queen has to survive for the population to be sustained. So whilst spring traps may kill hundreds of queens, those queens...

It's not ideal because of the collateral harm done to native species. The vast majority of the queens caught in Spring would have perished before successfully starting a colony anyway so there's a lot of harm done for very little actual gain. Availability of prey is absolutely the issue. If you...

If they were very very effective why is there a continuing need for them in velutina infested areas?

So there's enough food to bring them on but not enough to fatten them up which is consistent with workers having to sweet feed throughout the year to supplement carbs from larvae from within the nest. One little detail to bear in mind is the difference in climate and ecology which allows AH to...

If they are anything like other vespines they go to ground straight away. It makes no sense biologically for vespine queens to place themselves at risk. I have analysed the contents of many many hundreds of traps during formal field trials and I can tell you that queen wasps were not among the...

Indeed but there is also another feature of the fipronil custard method which significantly reduces risk of resistance further. The method allows for a higher target dose of fipronil to be administered which reduces the chance of survival considerably as resistance is also linked to dose.

I don't doubt that it's theoretically possible all things being equal but the likelihood is very small with fipronil custard. In the tick example you cite there is a long term low level diminishing exposure to fipronil. So even when administered orally or by injection fipronil will persist for...