Another Hornet species in France.

[user 819]

According to the bbka news that dropped thru the door today a larger Hornet specie has been found in France on at least two occasions. Vespa orientalis Linneus yet another invasive dedicated bee killer for the French and maybe us to have to look out for in future years.
Hopefully like V.v they would have difficulty in establishing in the more northern areas.
As if our bees haven't got enough on their plate to deal with from pests and disease.

The bee in this pick is certainly dicing with death.

 

[Austin]

That is a scary looking beast! I’ll let you know if I see one.
Austin (in Normandy)

 

[Apiarisnt]

and...

 

[user 819]

The nests were found in the Marseille area.

 

[Pembroke]

Wikipedia suggests it's range already includes Southern Europe including the 'foot' of Italy. So Marseilles isn't too much of a stretch:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oriental_hornet#/media/File:Vespa_orientalis_Distribution_Map2.svg
here's the full article: Oriental hornet - Wikipedia

The slightly more worrying location is Apiarisnt's article shows one dot a lot farther north in Southern Germany. Oh and just to make it harder to find, this type generally lives in underground nests.

 

[Amari]

According to the bbka news that dropped thru the door today a larger Hornet specie has been found in France on at least two occasions. Vespa orientalis Linneus yet another invasive dedicated bee killer for the French and maybe us to have to look out for in future years.
Hopefully like V.v they would have difficulty in establishing in the more northern areas.
As if our bees haven't got enough on their plate to deal with from pests and disease.

The bee in this pick is certainly dicing with death.
View attachment 29225

I often marvel at the anatomical design, whether that was by God or by Darwinian evolution, of bees, wasps and other Hymenoptera. Beautifully demo'd in Hemo's pic. Why have such a large thorax and a large abdomen joined together by a such a thin thread? Plumbing and cabling running between the two halves must really be packed in tight... Why?

 

[Erichalfbee]

Mobility? No need for girth if you have a liquid diet I guess

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

No need for girth if you have a liquid diet I guess

A few members of my club would argue that statement!

 

[Moobee]

According to the bbka news that dropped thru the door today a larger Hornet specie has been found in France on at least two occasions. Vespa orientalis Linneus yet another invasive dedicated bee killer for the French and maybe us to have to look out for in future years.
Hopefully like V.v they would have difficulty in establishing in the more northern areas.
As if our bees haven't got enough on their plate to deal with from pests and disease.

The bee in this pick is certainly dicing with death.
View attachment 29225

Some benefit to living on a cold wet island then!

 

[Amari]

Mobility? No need for girth if you have a liquid diet I guess

Could be mobility I suppose for insects that lay eggs in cells: the front half grips the comb, the rear half flexes so that the ovipositor is lowered into the cell?

 

[Erichalfbee]

A few members of my club would argue that statement!

I knew somebody might say that !!!!

 

[0bee-1]

Hi All
seems V. oreintalis has been recorded in the UK already as well as Belgium.... dont agree with the last sentence either!!!
the following from SPHECOS -
Number 5 -February 1982
A Newsletter for Aculeate Wasp Researchers

"TRAVELING HORNETS by Robin Edwards
Jacob Ishay, it seems, has started sending me Christmas presents from Israel. I assume it must be Ishay, for who else would have beautiful live queens of Vespa orientalis to give away? The strange thing is that he has packed them in crates
of grapefruits and oranges and sent them via two British supermarkets!
On second thought, perhaps its all fortuitous and the queens made their own way into the crates. I have now received two (Dec 1979 and Jan 1981), in perfect condition and given the right environment, probably quite capable of initiating nests. Similarly, in Belgium recently (see Delmotte and Leclercq, 1980, A propos
d'un Frelon Oriental intercepte vivant a Gembloux. Bull. Ann. Soc. Roy. Belg. Ent. 116:183-184) a queen of~· orientalis was found alive in a box of grapefruit from Cyprus. The authors of the note rightly, I believe, concluded that the queen was unlikely to found a colony in the temperate climate of Belgium, even if she had survived the winter. Nevertheless, this shows how easily vespines and other Aculeates can be spread around the world. Surely it is only a matter of time before this species and some others become established in foreign countries. I
doubt if any exotic species will breed in Britain, for with our poor summer
weather, I often wonder how anything breeds here! Still, it would be rather nice to find a colony of Vespa mandarinia in my back garden."

 

[0bee-1]

According to the bbka news that dropped thru the door today a larger Hornet specie has been found in France on at least two occasions. Vespa orientalis Linneus yet another invasive dedicated bee killer for the French and maybe us to have to look out for in future years.
Hopefully like V.v they would have difficulty in establishing in the more northern areas.
As if our bees haven't got enough on their plate to deal with from pests and disease.

The bee in this pick is certainly dicing with death.
View attachment 29225

beautiful insect though

 

[user 819]

Yes, it certainly is a strikingly good looking insect.