Asian Hornet APP

[elainemary]

The Gardapis allows small bees and wasps to escape via the the Q excluder plastic screen used for the main body. V.c Queens theoretically shouldn't be able to access the V.v size entrance plug , Bumble queens also shouldn't be able to enter the small opening .

The two entrance plugs being 7mm and 8mm.

Whatever trap is used then one is going to need to monitor it daily to keep an eye on any possible by catch . The timings of using them and using the correct size entrance insert will need to be watched.

Do you think people will actually monitor daily? This is the recommendation.

I think people will put up, leave , forget for a week and kill more beneficial insects than catch any Wiley well adapted Asian hornets. That’s the evidence from Guernsey and Jersey who use it only at very specific times and adjust the traps in a specific way.

The message given at the conference was don’t silly nilly trap, look for sightings near your hives, then use the App to identify them & report to the NBU

 

[elainemary]

I didn’t hear anything about banning traps just caution until the Fera. Science analysis can tell us from dna results esults whether most nests have come from just one or two queen lines and so more likely to have been destroyed. Or, whether there are lots of queen lines around suggesting a big problem again this year.

I think the sensible route is to not jump to conclusions but wait until the NBU announce their protocol which must be due soon ahead of the start of the season. We need to listen to what they have to say before criticising them IMHO. Let’s give them a chance first

 

[fian]

I am going to ask a question and the response from the other colleagues should mark the deadline for the implementation of the protocol.
Some of the users have planted a camellia in their garden. When does your camellia bloom?

 

[elainemary]

I am going to ask a question and the response from the other colleagues should mark the deadline for the implementation of the protocol.
Some of the users have planted a camellia in their garden. When does your camellia bloom?

The reason why people do this is it is a favourite plant in China / Asia for the hornet. Remember where they are adapted -warm, sunny climates. I can't grow camellias in my garden - too biting easterly winds even though the soil type is acid. It's a good idea to plant one just so you can spot Vv and use the APP to confirm it's Vv and report to NBU.

Another interesting fact is Vv like honey bees and wasps, are very docile away from the nest. Only a threat to humans when you get within 10m or nearer to the nest and disturb them

 

[madasafish]

Sorry but a lot of the above appears unrealistic to me: a simple soul.

Purely from my personal experiences.

Bait stations: who has the time to observe one not only daily but for hours at a time? Very few. SO to rely on bait stations as way for detecting AH is risible. (easy if there are lots like in France of course)

Who looks at traps daily? Very few when it is raining - and guess what? it rains a lot at times.

If you want traps to work, you need large ones, ones that do not collect water when it rains and are selective and have space for lots of catch..To cater for inspections say twice a week.

You then need to be able to photo caught insects. If alive , you want to be able to photo inside the trap. SO dark coloured see through walls are a bad thing.

Remember, the emphasis just now is on discovery of new incursions so relatively few hornets may be found..Which means they should be easily identified when alive in a trap and photographed. Not easy when a trap is full of heaving insects. Or dead ones in a sea of water.

(been there: nightmare when it rains). You need to remove dead carcassses, place on a white background and identify.

Of course I may be wrong but those are my personal experiences from an area where so far there are no AH but a few European hornets and LOTS of moths/wasps etc.

 

[Moobee]

I agree we can’t rely on our political leaders. The examples I saw at the conference show Galicia in Spain with E30m impact on fruit production due to the reduction in pollinators but a budget of E11m now needed to make an impact.

This is why the NBU in my opinion redirected resources this year . Like wasps there may be good years and bad years for Vv especially in the northern part of our countries.

We all still need to do our bit like climate change :top down (government departments) and bottom up (us sharing the APP and educating the public) but not putting traps out unless they are guaranteed Vv specific - none on the market yet

I'm not convinced anyone will manage to make something so narrowly focused and believe that queen trapping in early spring is the first thing to try. As they fly at lower temperatures than most pollinators, i'm going to put my AH traps out next month.
My thought process is that for every trapped & killed AH queen and a small amount of bycatch = one less nest and potentially 12kg of dead insects.

 

[Moobee]

Can you let me know which trap pls is available that is only V brlutima specific?

. At the conference it was said by the Guernsey experts none of the traps on the market will only trap Vv. V crabo and wood wasps for instance. They also said any by catch other than Vv was bad PR with the public. They actually adapt traps to minimise by catch which make them very expensive. For all these reasons trapping is only used for a very narrow window for virgins v early in the season for a month.

Traps were on sale at the conference but when questioned the sellers were embarrassed to admit some by catch are forfeited. Includes the Veta pharma trap.

Throughout the sessions the speaker experts including NBU gave the message don’t use traps wait for direction and a proper protocol from NBU / due v soon

A real eye opener for me

I don't think I can wait for direction from the flipping NBU as the whole thing seems to be moving at the pace of Southern Snail - i'm on the south coast and potentially in the firing line....

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

i'm on the south coast and potentially in the firing line..

I prefer to look at is as the panic line

 

[bpmurray]

We have only had a single Vv in Ireland so far, and she didn't last long. However, given the huge increase in numbers next door last year, we've gotten really worried. From what I can see the choices are:

• The traditional style traps like the ones from Vita Pharma, deployed in the spring
• The high-tech solutions like the harps
• The larger traps like the Jabreprobe

I have no experience of any of these, but it strikes me that bycatch is inevitable for all of them. However, if the threat of slaughter of the bees is so bad, perhaps bycatch is acceptable. From an Irish perspective, we don't have other hornets (actually there are a few V. crabro but they are very few & far between), so the bycatch would actually be very small indeed.

 

[madasafish]

I don't think I can wait for direction from the flipping NBU as the whole thing seems to be moving at the pace of Southern Snail - i'm on the south coast and potentially in the firing line....

I am going to start trapping VQs in April..To do that I need to plan where and how and buy equipment - which is what I am doing now. The NBU should be telling us now..what they recommend.

I note some of the proposed bait stations include cloths soaked in fluid food. Obviously proposed by people who don't have starlings /crows,/magpies/squirrels etc..

I have enough problems with starlings trying to unpick hive straps (yes really ) : a food soaked rag would be a red rag to a herd of bulls.

 

[Wilco]

I am going to start trapping VQs in April..To do that I need to plan where and how and buy equipment - which is what I am doing now. The NBU should be telling us now..what they recommend.

I note some of the proposed bait stations include cloths soaked in fluid food. Obviously proposed by people who don't have starlings /crows,/magpies/squirrels etc..

I have enough problems with starlings trying to unpick hive straps (yes really ) : a food soaked rag would be a red rag to a herd of bulls.

I think you should listen to what @elainemary has reported multiple times in her posts here and copied with emphasis added (mine) below, especially #35 and also what @Karol has explained in multiple threads: do not trap. That is what the NBU are saying.

Can you let me know which trap pls is available that is only V brlutima specific?

. At the conference it was said by the Guernsey experts none of the traps on the market will only trap Vv. V crabo and wood wasps for instance. They also said any by catch other than Vv was bad PR with the public. They actually adapt traps to minimise by catch which make them very expensive. For all these reasons trapping is only used for a very narrow window for virgins v early in the season for a month.

Traps were on sale at the conference but when questioned the sellers were embarrassed to admit some by catch are forfeited. Includes the Veta pharma trap.

Throughout the sessions the speaker experts including NBU gave the message don’t use traps wait for direction and a proper protocol from NBU / due v soon

A real eye opener for me

I don’t trust it - especially when the experts say there are no traps that only catch VV.

Do you think people will actually monitor daily? This is the recommendation.

I think people will put up, leave , forget for a week and kill more beneficial insects than catch any Wiley well adapted Asian hornets. That’s the evidence from Guernsey and Jersey who use it only at very specific times and adjust the traps in a specific way.

The message given at the conference was don’t silly nilly trap, look for sightings near your hives, then use the App to identify them & report to the NBU

 

[RichardK]

I prefer to look at is as the panic line

I think a more accurate name would be it's your 'first line of defence'. Once they get past the south coast.....well, it's over.

For those who choose to do nothing but have a nest or 2 in their vicinity then this video shows you what will happen once they find your hives - (it's in French, but it's the video rather than audio that's important:

 

[RichardK]

I think you should listen to what @elainemary has reported multiple times in her posts here and copied with emphasis added (mine) below, especially #35 and also what @Karol has explained in multiple threads: do not trap. That is what the NBU are saying.

Maybe I've missed something here, but come spring why would you not want to trap mated queens who are looking to set up home?

 

[The Poot]

Maybe I've missed something here, but come spring why would you not want to trap mated queens who are looking to set up home?

It could be “because the science is settled”

 

[Wilco]

Maybe I've missed something here, but come spring why would you not want to trap mated queens who are looking to set up home?

Because of the bycatch issue. Countless posts here and on other threads point out that there are no traps which only catch V.v.. Which means using these traps will kill off lots of native insects.

Killing off wasps and native hornets both decreases biodiversity and also decreases competition for prey. This means that, should any V.v. queens not be caught, they have less competition for resources so can hunt more successfully. This means they will scale up their nests more successfully. Which in turn increases their chances of producing a secondary nest which thus increases the chances of them being able to produce queens for the next year.

Either way, if the NBU are saying don't trap, even after they've exhausted themselves this last summer, then maybe we should listen.

 

[madasafish]

I think you should listen to what @elainemary has reported multiple times in her posts here and copied with emphasis added (mine) below, especially #35 and also what @Karol has explained in multiple threads: do not trap. That is what the NBU are saying.

I have already stated I stopped trapping years ago due to catching moths , European hornets etc.
I have already referenced a make of trap which lets wasps etc escape and targets Asian Hornets.

A non trapping system is unlikely o work once AH spreads .. the numbers are on the side of AH. Especially in thinly populated countryside with lots of woods.

 

[fian]

https://www.nationalbeeunit.com/ass...ct_Sheets/Fact_01_Asian_Hornet_Monitoring.pdfI don't know when the guide is from, and given the little English I can understand without a translator, does this guide to monitor mean playing with 2 sides?

Because of the bycatch issue. Countless posts here and on other threads point out that there are no traps which only catch V.v.. Which means using these traps will kill off lots of native insects.

Killing off wasps and native hornets both decreases biodiversity and also decreases competition for prey. This means that, should any V.v. queens not be caught, they have less competition for resources so can hunt more successfully. This means they will scale up their nests more successfully. Which in turn increases their chances of producing a secondary nest which thus increases the chances of them being able to produce queens for the next year.

Either way, if the NBU are saying don't trap, even after they've exhausted themselves this last summer, then maybe we should listen.

 

[fian]

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10778013/This article analyzes different traps and in general the captures of non-VV species are high. Just 2 questions:
-Does the period between two trap supervisions influence their effectiveness? In this case every 2 weeks.
-Why do you think the E trap is more affective?

 

[elainemary]

In

I'm not convinced anyone will manage to make something so narrowly focused and believe that queen trapping in early spring is the first thing to try. As they fly at lower temperatures than most pollinators, i'm going to put my AH traps out next month.
My thought process is that for every trapped & killed AH queen and a small amount of bycatch = one less nest and potentially 12kg of dead insects.

Unfortunately your gut feel is flawed. Expert speakers from both Jersey and Guernsey using specially adapted traps, revealed there is no evidence that trapping makes any difference to the growth of population. Very few hornets were caught. With a trap spacing of 500m across the whole island of Guernsey and 262 volunteers resulted in only c 7 hornets being trapped!
The strong message by all speakers is don’t trap, watch your hives instead. Wait for the protocol.

Unfortunately like abuse of varroa strips some will choose to ignore the advice. We have an insect armegeddon on our hands why add to it?

Postscript after I wrote this . Don’t want to upset or slight you in any way @Moobee. Your heart is in the right place I just feel so passionate about supporting all our pollinators. Unfortunately V velutina is the wrong insect in the wrong place and it’s not actually their fault this has happened. Man has cocked up big style.

 

[RichardK]

Because of the bycatch issue. Countless posts here and on other threads point out that there are no traps which only catch V.v.. Which means using these traps will kill off lots of native insects.

Killing off wasps and native hornets both decreases biodiversity and also decreases competition for prey. This means that, should any V.v. queens not be caught, they have less competition for resources so can hunt more successfully. This means they will scale up their nests more successfully. Which in turn increases their chances of producing a secondary nest which thus increases the chances of them being able to produce queens for the next year.

Either way, if the NBU are saying don't trap, even after they've exhausted themselves this last summer, then maybe we should listen.

Now I've never gone into the depths of statistics here but still, this seems like a very lame argument to me.

• An average AH nest consumes just over 11kg of insects in a season - 6.92kg are not bees
• 38% are bees, 30% are flies, 20% are wasps and the rest a real diverse range of insects - a total of 159 species have been identified.
• in my area I would guestimate that my bycatch is tiny - say less than 5% (& really I suspect it's less that 1%, but I've never counted as it's so small.
  • my Jabeprod traps have only caught AH so far (one season)
  • I've seen the occasional European Hornet in traps and flies seems to come and go at will from the Vespacatch traps I use. When I top up these traps occasionally I trap half a dozen or so bees in the first hour or so.
  • my plastic bottles (mixture of beer, wine & syrup) catch mainly AH, but when I've emptied them out I do find some wasps although I've never seen any enter.....clearly they do though

From my experience it's simply not possible that the bycatch I see outweighs the predation that the AH will make if left to their own devices.

Over March 2023 I trapped around 40 to 50 AH's. I didn't split these out queens vs workers however, it's fair to say there was both in there. Based on what I experienced this year if I managed to prevent more colonies from becoming established then it was well worth it. I should add I never saw any AH at this time when I was around the hives...obviously they were though.

I'd be happy to see some figures / research justifying why trapping mated queens in early spring is a bad idea? I can' get my head around the statement from elainemary that "there is no evidence that trapping makes any difference to the growth of population". Every queen killed in spring could save 6.92kg of non-bee species.....surely for those so concerned with bycatch that should make quite an impact no? Not to mention the 4.18kg of bees saved.