"Asian Hornet" seen in Cornwall

[domino]

Please don't go down the fiprinol route. Not only is it an illegal use of the chemical it is highly toxic to other wildlife. What do you think happens to a nest once it dies out? Birds, other beneficial insects and mammals move in to clear it up. Please think about other things than honeybees. It is also important that these nests are analysed so we fully understand the spread. That would not occur by 'dealing with it yourselves'. Let's be responsible about this. Beekeepers have proved to be an ingenious bunch over the years with the recent threat varroa posed, let's not pose a threat ourselves and start looking at other ways to protect your livestock.

http://npic.orst.edu/factsheets/archive/fiptech.html

I think most animals would need to eat a huge number of nests to have any real impact.

I wonder what an untreated population of AH do to the natural eco-system? How many insects and food sources they deplete for native wildlife.

 

[MuswellMetro]

Asian hornet confirmed in North Devon
26th September 2017

could it be this devon news report? this show it as Vespa Crabo not VV

https://www.devonlive.com/news/devon-news/europes-biggest-hornet-been-spotted-1945094

if anyone wants to see VC then i have a nuc full of them that they have just overun

 

[Hivemaker.]

could it be this devon news report?

No, it couldn't be.

 

[BKF Admin]

After taking advice I have opened this thread again.
Please note the following:


1.The forum does not endorse the Mazzamazda method.

2 The forum considers the use of the Mazzamazda method for any species other than Vespa velutina irresponsible and will censor any future posts to that effect.

3. The thread has been re-opened specifically for international consumption where there are overwhelming infestations of Vespa velutina.

4. Individuals are advised to check the legality of using the Mazzamazda method in their territory and the forum assumes no responsibility for such use.

Admin.

 

[steve1958]

Sounds good to me.

 

[Codford]

After taking advice I have opened this thread again.
Please note the following:


1.The forum does not endorse the Mazzamazda method.

2 The forum considers the use of the Mazzamazda method for any species other than Vespa velutina irresponsible and will censor any future posts to that effect.

3. The thread has been re-opened specifically for international consumption where there are overwhelming infestations of Vespa velutina.

4. Individuals are advised to check the legality of using the Mazzamazda method in their territory and the forum assumes no responsibility for such use.

Admin.

A sensible, balanced and pragmatic approach. Thank you Admin

 

[mazzamazda]

Please don't go down the fiprinol route. Not only is it an illegal use of the chemical it is highly toxic to other wildlife. What do you think happens to a nest once it dies out? Birds, other beneficial insects and mammals move in to clear it up. Please think about other things than honeybees. It is also important that these nests are analysed so we fully understand the spread. That would not occur by 'dealing with it yourselves'. Let's be responsible about this. Beekeepers have proved to be an ingenious bunch over the years with the recent threat varroa posed, let's not pose a threat ourselves and start looking at other ways to protect your livestock.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4faleGFgYco

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6XN31-TAl4

It is a desperate and not an easy route, however you have to understand the situation. We get no help and are left to deal with the situation ourselves. The guy who recorded these videos lost his business, the only source of income and 280 colonies last year to VV. There is no reason anyone in the UK should be thinking about doing anything other than calling the NBU for help.

 

[mazzamazda]

It is even worse than that, killing nests is now illegal and the government has given up. This article is from Jornali and translated.

At i, Quercus denounces "total dismissal of the State" and warns of the dangers that the removal of nests by citizens represents

There are municipal Civil Protection services to charge the population for the destruction of Vespa velutina nests. The alert was made to i by the Quercus - National Association of Nature Conservation, which claims to have knowledge not of one, but of several cases in which this occurred.

"It's worrying. We know that there are people who are calling the municipalities because they find nests of Vespa velutina and the answer they receive from some is that to go to remove the nests is necessary the payment of 60 euros of travel, plus another value per hour. There is a total dismissal of the state, which shows in the background admitting to having lost the war against Vespa velutina and no longer wants to know about the subject ", denounces the João Branco, president of Quercus.

As a result, "people do not take their nests out of the way to spend money" or, in cases where the nest is found on the façades of the houses and puts the security of the residents at risk, "people remove their nests themselves, all the risks that this entails, both for them and for the neighbors, "warns João Branco.

This is what happened, for example, with a resident of Gondomar. After contacting the local authority to ask for the removal, he refused to pay the amount requested and eventually removed the nest with a jet of water during the day - an error, because "this operation has to be done at night because during the day, the wasps are not all in the nest ", as João Branco notes. Then the person put a bucket of bleach underneath the place where the nest was, and the nest, as the account of the Quercus responsible, "luckily" fell into the bucket.

But there is yet another additional danger on the table: it is that when people withdraw their nests, there is no confirmation that the nest removed is actually Asian wasp, which ends up having "a direct influence on surveillance and combat the Asian wasp itself, "since official monitoring is not done to allow a real perception of the spread of this invasive species in the country, which poses a threat not only to biodiversity but also to agriculture. "They have to be the competent organisms to remove the nests, to produce statistics," says João Branco.

A "nonexistent" action plan This is not the first time that Quercus has been alert to problems related to this pest. The Action Plan for the Monitoring and Control of Vespa velutina in Portugal, set up by a working group that brought together the Directorate General for Food and Veterinary Affairs (DGAV), the Institute for Nature Conservation and Forestry (ICNF) and the Institute National Agency for Agrarian and Veterinary Research (INIAV), has been criticized by the association for its ineffectiveness. "It is an action plan that, in practice, does not exist," argues the president of Quercus.

What is happening now reveals a major weakness of the plan: the fact that the document does not regulate the process of destroying nests, which results in "each municipality doing its own way," says João Branco.

I contacted the National Civil Protection Authority (ANPC) to see if it has knowledge of cases such as those reported by Quercus. Official source said he did not know similar cases, referring the jurisdiction to the municipalities and their civil protection services. The i tried to contact the Municipal Council of Gondomar, but without success.

 

[Erichalfbee]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4faleGFgYco

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6XN31-TAl4

It is a desperate and not an easy route, however you have to understand the situation. We get no help and are left to deal with the situation ourselves. The guy who recorded these videos lost his business, the only source of income and 280 colonies last year to VV. There is no reason anyone in the UK should be thinking about doing anything other than calling the NBU for help.

Good grief!
Every one of those hives surrounded by Hornets !
What Hell is this!
Poor bugger!

 

[Karol]

The good news is that Mazzamazda's method will cure that situation so all hope is not lost and it does help put what I've been saying into context. As far as I'm aware Mazzamazda hasn't lost a single hive since adopting the method.

 

[mazzamazda]

I haven't had it this bad, at the worst in 2015 I had around 4 hornets per hive. When I left for the UK last week I had around 3 hornets per 5 hives, treated for a few hours on Sunday and that reduced to a few hornets per apiary of over 100 colonies. The luck comes in getting the queen.

Yes, I have lost hives before the introduction of the custard but none since.

 

[domino]

I haven't had it this bad, at the worst in 2015 I had around 4 hornets per hive. When I left for the UK last week I had around 3 hornets per 5 hives, treated for a few hours on Sunday and that reduced to a few hornets per apiary of over 100 colonies. The luck comes in getting the queen.

Yes, I have lost hives before the introduction of the custard but none since.

How widespread is the method where you live?

 

[mazzamazda]

How widespread is the method where you live?

Limited, the biggest problem is the time required to treat. The favourite this year seems to be arps, these are good for foragers but the nest still releases queens.

I've had mixed feedback from people who have used it here, some really like it and others havent found it to work although I dont think it was being used correctly. Initially it was positive in Thailand but today had negative feedback. I think overdosing is the main problem and the hornet not making it back.

 

[bpmurray]

This is terrifying - there have been at least six nests destroyed in the UK in 2018, so it's only a matter of time before they arrive in Ireland. Presumably the vector will be overwintering queens in plants or timber, so it's pretty much impossible to prevent.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

This is terrifying - there have been at least six nests destroyed in the UK in 2018.

Four - and two were the same colony

 

[charlievictorbravo]

Four - and two were the same colony

Heard anything more about New Arlesford (Winchester) - is that a single nest or were there two? What about the Lymington sighting - was there a nest there or just a sighting or a body in a trap?

We still have far more European Hornets than is quite proper. Let's hope they don't overwinter well because, although their nests only contain 400+ insects, with a lot of nests, they can do a fair bit of damage to a bee colony and they change the behaviour of the guard bees.

CVB

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Heard anything more about New Arlesford (Winchester) - is that a single nest or were there two? What about the Lymington sighting - was there a nest there or just a sighting or a body in a trap?
CVB

the New Arlesford one was a single nest, the thinking is that it was a very well developed primary (and low down), but it will be a while probably before the boffins complete the analysis. The feeling is that Velutina struggled to develop their colonies over here and either didn't step up to a secondary and just expanded the primary or, as in Fowey, were late in going to a secondary nest.
I don't know the details of the circumstances of the Lymington reporting, but it must have been either a trapped one or good photo as it was confirmed pretty sharpish. Again, the nest was located and destroyed pretty quickly at Thorne beach near Brockenhurst.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Update.
The thornes beach hornet (Lymington) was another non beekeeper report - seen feeding on windfall apples in the garden, nest found about 400 metres away, high up in a tree.

 

[alisonfosterbell]

Turned out it wasn't an Asian Hornet (AH) but here's the story.

I had a pm on this forum yesterday from a beek I know who had lost my contact details. Message said:
"Hi
Had a phone call from an ex-beekeeper friend in Mary Tavy.
He has had a beekeeper from South Wales staying at Lydford, who was very concerned and claims that he saw Asian Hornets in a yellow shrub outside the National Trust teashop at Cotehele... taking honey bees.
Quite why the message was passed to me I do not know.
No photo or sample, but chap was convinced they were Asian Hornets

Thought your group may be interested... have sent email to the alien species lot!

Good Luck"

As a coordinator for a newly formed Asian Hornet Action Team, I started phoning down my contact list and the first two volunteers that I spoke to said they would stop what they were doing and meet me at Cotehele, a National Trust property in Calstock, Cornwall. We met up by the teashop and found the shrub that was attracting all the insects - it was Pileostegia viburnoides (common name "Climbing Hydrangea"). The plants were absolutely covered in all sorts of pollinators, including: honey bees, wasps, several types of bumble bee (including queens), hover flies and other flies.
Feeding on these were European Hornets(EH). We saw EHs take a wasp and a honeybee. The EHs behaved just like an Asian Hornet (AH) in that they took their prey to a perch and bit the head off, possible more, before flying off with the remains. The one difference appeared to be that the EH took a static prey feeding on the plant whereas we are informed the AH takes its prey in the air. Trying to follow the flight of the hornet, as they are doing in Jersey, to track the hornets to their nest, was very difficult.

The conclusion that we came to after watching for half an hour was that what had been seen by the Welsh Beekeeper was a European Hornet behaving like an Asian Hornet and the speed of flight meant that a casual watcher from the teashop tables would not realise that it was the native hornet and not the invasive species.

How did we feel at the end of our first call-out? Well, relieved in a sense that it was a false alarm. I was personally grateful that the first people I called to assist dropped what they were doing and drove out to Calstock with cameras and nets ready for action.

Today, I reported our findings to the local SBI and sent him photos of what we had seen. He checked with the RBI who decided that he should put up a monitoring trap (which a forum member has offered to check daily).

The big lesson that came out of this is that some beekeepers still don't know how to identify Asian Hornets, despite all the efforts over the last two years by the NBU. Come on guys, wake up!

CVB

I live in Picardy in Northern France. We are experiencing a plague of AHs right now and I have 5 or 6 hornets outside the entrance each hive, picking off bees in flight, as you say. They are very sinister and behave like remote controlled drones. They wait, hovering, facing outwards for incoming bees and pounce/pursue. I had always understood that the European hornet doesn't hunt bees. But your post and what I have observed recently belie that! I saw EHs picking up bees probably, as you say, landed bees.
It is very sad watching this carnage...