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Are there more than one species of European hornet. We have these anyway. The Asian is still gathering in Normandy as far as I know. But the wasps this year have been dreadful.. never known such numbers.
Don't laugh.. even succumbed to wearing a bee suit to do my winter hanging baskets as wasps were getting in my hair and all over my hands..
 
your lucky Heather I cant get to my bee suit lol its in shed and its full of wasps I have used 2 cans of spray since Saturday and just got in today but one good thing about it they are not going into my hives looked round for a nest but cant find it but amount of dead wasps I have their nest should be empty
 
Many more wasps this year.
I have 5 wasp bane traps out. The one furthest downwind of the apiary is the one catching most of them. The hives.....touchwood.....are being left mostly alone.....so far!!!!
 
I would put the mouse guard on the hives. It helps a lot, but is not foolproof.
 
I have substantially weakened one wasp nest in the ground near to some of my hives. Hoovered up 600+600+510 in three attempts!
 
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-paving-way-arrival-deadly-Asian-cousins.html

I'm currently having as much of a problem with European hornets than Asian hornets, they boldly fly straight into my hives, grab a bee and out. Horrid.


European hornets will not kill off an entire colony. The Asians will.
Reportedly there are some Asian hornets already with you in Portugal, but you'll certainly tell the difference when they get to your area ...

Enjoy the limited threat of the European hornet while it lasts.
 
No hornets of any species here in Ireland. But plenty of wasps and as I found some munching on a slice of ham earlier toda,y, they are not finished rearing brood.
 
I had wasps killing and decapitating bees in the boot of my car last week. the bees were in there from bringing my supers home and there were dozens of wasps flying in and killing them.
 
I had wasps killing and decapitating bees in the boot of my car last week. the bees were in there from bringing my supers home and there were dozens of wasps flying in and killing them.
Still sweet feeding though....not feeding protein to the grubs at home.
Take the head off and fly away with the abdomen, full of nectar.
 
I can only agree on the wasp problems this year. Had 12 Apideas with Queens waiting to mate, that was early July. Wasp normally arrive in August, but this year they have started in July and killed every single Apidea. After they killed the last Apidea, I left it out for a few days and Wasp still went in for the bit of food in it, at some point I closed the door and froze the Apidea. Next day I stopped counting at 78 wasp with many many more in there.

We also lost 7 Nucs so far and Wasp are still attacking every single day and minute and yes, all the entrances are reduced and we have around 30 traps and catch many many wasp with them and at every inspection, we kill probably around 50-100 wasp but still....

We found 1 Wasp Nest and know of one more at the neighbours who does not want to do anything about it. So, what else to do???
 
So, what else to do???

put your apideas in a line.
Try to arrange it so that you have a strong colony of bees downwind of the line of apideas.
Put a Waspbane trap downwind of the line and one at the entrance of the two most downwind apideas.
My colonies are all in a line and I have 5 traps out.
The only one to have caught any wasps....and that's quite a few....is the one downwind of that line. The hives are not being bothered that much
 
I had terrible problems with wasps around my hives (and all the hives have one bee space entrances but as soon as I approached the hives the wasps were ready to pounce)The wasps nest has been located and hopefully it has been destroyed but it's taken more than one dose of the stuff.

The wasps were even after me while I was strimming the nettles away from the hives.
 
put your apideas in a line.
Try to arrange it so that you have a strong colony of bees downwind of the line of apideas.
Put a Waspbane trap downwind of the line and one at the entrance of the two most downwind apideas.
My colonies are all in a line and I have 5 traps out.
The only one to have caught any wasps....and that's quite a few....is the one downwind of that line. The hives are not being bothered that much

I have never used Waspbane. We use Coke and catch hundreds of Wasp and a few Hornets as well with it. How good is the Waspbane? We get attacked by hundreds and hundreds of Wasp, each year, but this year even worse. Does Waspbane not fill up quick and than you have to buy the expensive re-fill or how does it work?
 
Umm, this monstrous insect terrorised this poor woman by sitting on her fence for 3 hours. She must be traumatised!
 
I have never used Waspbane. We use Coke and catch hundreds of Wasp and a few Hornets as well with it. How good is the Waspbane? We get attacked by hundreds and hundreds of Wasp, each year, but this year even worse. Does Waspbane not fill up quick and than you have to buy the expensive re-fill or how does it work?

I use Waspbane every year.

Luka, the more wasps you catch, the worse your traps are working.

As I understand it, wasps rely greatly on scouts finding sources of food, telling the colony, whereupon huge numbers return to pillage the food source.

The trouble with your Coke traps, is that, though they catch a lot of scouts, a lot get out and get back to their colony. They tell them about this fantastic source of food - your Coke trap - and they come mob-handed.

Now the Waspbane trap claims to be highly efficient, designed to let no wasps escape the trap - so they don't get back to the colony - so the source of food remains 'invisible' to the main colony. As a result, Waspbane traps have far fewer wasps in them - but none get away. So, your hives remain untouched.

That's what I've experienced in the last 3 seasons. And never had a problem with wasps in my hives.

And I've never had a full Waspbane trap yet. I only replace the refill once a year.

Dusty
 
I have never used Waspbane. We use Coke and catch hundreds of Wasp and a few Hornets as well with it. How good is the Waspbane? We get attacked by hundreds and hundreds of Wasp, each year, but this year even worse. Does Waspbane not fill up quick and than you have to buy the expensive re-fill or how does it work?

I have a wasp trap station close by a plum tree, well away from the apiary. There are six inverted lid pop bottle traps with jam and water with a drop of washing up liquid to encourage drowning plus four pop bottles with the pound shop cones cut in the side and the same jam and water bait inside.
All are regularly catching masses of wasps and despite often watching for entertainment I've yet to see any wasp get out of either type of trap once inside.
Makes me wonder how much worse it would be if I hadn't despatched a lot of queen wasps in the spring. I've patrolled my land looking for wasp nests without finding any but I suspect they are living on neighbouring property.
I run with reduced entrances all the time so although questing scouts approach the hives the bees are keeping them out.
I'd like there to be a non bee attractive Nippon-for-ants type product on the market whereby foraging wasps take it back to the nest and poison their colony. Just got to be sure bees wouldn't be interested in it :(
 
Wasps, Hornets and Asian hornets.

We have a plague of wasps here too! i went away in early July, and came back to a virtual plague.
Have been using my hornet traps that seem to capture quite a lot of wasps.

To give you an update on our Asian Hornet, I live near St Malo and Dinan and last week alone, 23 nests of the Asian Hornet were destroyed by a treatment specialist working in Dinan and its southern villages.
However let me say this. Dinan and its surrounding areas is ideal for the asian hornet proliferation. It loves low lying waterways and canal type, slow moving water where plenty of food is availible.

I live on a higher area just north of Dinan and i am surrounded by valley and we havent got an asian hornet issue at the moment and nor has 3 fellow beekeepers in the 10 kilometre radius around me!!
I have trapped this spring and trapped about 16 queen asian hornets, as well as many more common hornets. I am happy to trap a few common hornets but ideally i dont want to catch them all. Common Hornets, Vespa Crabbo, (same as the uk species) do eat a lot more insects such as aphids, flies and mosquitos. i hear about common hornets taking bees all the time but in reality its a small percentage compared to the Asian hornet.

I also think that the asian Hornet , pain in the butt that it is, won't do that well in the uk. If you look at the populations of common hornet their not huge and the nests are nothing like they are here. Theres just not the weather and the temperatures.
Theres also been a lot of "sensasalisation" by the press who have been posting pictures of the giant Japanese hornet, which we do not have here . This really annoys me!

If you want to make up your own traps i have done a couple of videos on my blog, which i currently can't post a direct link too. just google up bees in brittany and you will find it there. The second Video has detailed instructions on how to make the bottle traps which work really well here.


Would be happy to answer any questions if i can. I am no entomologist but have been dealing with this asian problem for the last 3 years since it finally arrived here.
Dont believe all the hype you hear. Their still keeping bees in the Gironde area where this invasive species first made an appearance!!!!!
 

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