Asian Hornet - Update

[TryingToLetThemBee]

I had a reply from the reporter who wrote the piece, as follows "I just wanted to apologise for my mistake with the picture on the article about the Asian Hornet.

I’m new to the office, and was on my own covering a late shift. I was asked to keep the website active and use the article elsewhere of the Asian hornet. We didn’t include any picture in the newspaper.

I’m unable to put anything online without a graphic so I searched the company’s database of pictures that we have permission to use. I searched for ‘asian hornet’ on here and this was one of the pictures that came up with ‘asian hornet’ in the details.

My editor has emailed me the information that you sent, so I didn’t remove the article I only changed the picture to one with just a nest so that I don’t cause any confusion. Sorry about the mistake, I will be more careful for future articles to try to double check that each detail is correct.
Kind regards,
Sarah Colston
Reporter
Gazette Series"

CVB

I appreciate her conscientiousness: please express that to her for me if you get a chance. It's not the mistake but the (non-) cover-up...

 

[REDWOOD]

How about this picture?

Mafia bees

 

[Erichalfbee]

I had a chat to a lady on the NBU stand this morning particularly about their trapping advice. She said the standard advice is that people put traps out in spring. AND not just sentinel traps. She wasn't having anything from me about collateral damage. The suggestion that we get trapping once we know there is a problem was met by, "there are already here and we should expect queens to have survived"
I asked her what the evidence was on the nest that was destroyed and she would not be drawn on whether there were any queens produced

 

[Plenty of honey]

I had a chat to a lady on the NBU stand this morning particularly about their trapping advice. She said the standard advice is that people put traps out in spring. AND not just sentinel traps. She wasn't having anything from me about collateral damage. The suggestion that we get trapping once we know there is a problem was met by, "there are already here and we should expect queens to have survived"
I asked her what the evidence was on the nest that was destroyed and she would not be drawn on whether there were any queens produced

So with that advice, the common hornet (Vespa Crabbo) is set for a pasting next year then!!
Surely it would be more logical to the use of non selective traps in a radius from the "area 45" (the Tetbury nest) and in the areas far from the destroyed nest, aka the rest of the uk, selective traps.
i had thought the NBY were issuing diagrams of traps with this in mind!! change of goal posts??

http://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/attachment.php?attachmentid=13685&stc=1&d=1477589302

 

[Hivemaker.]

She wasn't having anything from me about collateral damage.

God help us when SHB arrives, with her around.

 

[Anduril]

So with that advice, the common hornet (Vespa Crabbo) is set for a pasting next year then!!
Surely it would be more logical to the use of non selective traps in a radius from the "area 45" (the Tetbury nest) and in the areas far from the destroyed nest, aka the rest of the uk, selective traps.
i had thought the NBY were issuing diagrams of traps with this in mind!! change of goal posts??

http://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/attachment.php?attachmentid=13685&stc=1&d=1477589302

Totally agree it is poor advice, maybe they need to be challenged at all the bee conventions, to come clean about their findings. They should have issued a statement a few weeks ago, whether queen cells had been found. The advice they have given Erichalfbee will only cause panic and Karol won't be happy.

 

[BILL.HEARD]

I think I asked the same question a week or so back regarding the nest found, were queens cells found or not, had they hatched, nobody seemed to have come back with a sensible answer. Surely they must have gone over the nest with a fine tooth comb?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Totally agree it is poor advice, maybe they need to be challenged at all the bee conventions, to come clean about their findings. They should have issued a statement a few weeks ago, whether queen cells had been found. The advice they have given Erichalfbee will only cause panic and Karol won't be happy.

There needs to be a FOI request lodged if they won't release full details of the nest analysis - better from a representative body...........
Anyone here have confidence the BBKA would take a stance?

 

[Plenty of honey]

Totally agree it is poor advice, maybe they need to be challenged at all the bee conventions, to come clean about their findings. They should have issued a statement a few weeks ago, whether queen cells had been found. The advice they have given Erichalfbee will only cause panic and Karol won't be happy.

I think the panic is already there. With statements advising The use of non sélective traps aparantly being given One wonders if their fundamental stragety is correct!!
The issue in the uk, if we didn't mention it before, was due to the numbers of beekeepers compared to the square mile, common hornets would be wiped out in the locality.
Yes Spring trapping does work very effectively, but for us here, all we're doing is reducing the numbers of Asian hornets and unfortunately do trap a few common queens too. However because we have a lot less beekeepers per square mile, were unlikely to upset the balance and work the common hornet does, because there's always a core residue due to the beekeeper numbers.
Do the same trapping in the uk and you could considerably affect the common hornet numbers that wouldn't recover. I am sure Karol would agree!! He's seen similar problems in over trapping of queen wasps in the spring, leading to a build up of pest insects! He's discussed this in this thread already!! A few years ago I wasn't really worried but after seeing and reading on the subject it's a very real issue that the NBU seem to sidelining. I do hope the lady in question, does not mirror the general consensus of NBU!!

 

[Hivemaker.]

The issue in the uk, if we didn't mention it before, was due to the numbers of beekeepers compared to the square mile, common hornets would be wiped out in the locality.

Not here they won't, there are plenty of European Hornets and not many beekeepers, and I won't be putting out any traps in spring.

 

[domino]

I was wondering, do Asian Hornets have a disproportionate impact on queens returning from mating? Or is it pretty low risk compared to the other things trying to eat them anyway?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

The suggestion that we get trapping once we know there is a problem was met by, "there are already here and we should expect queens to have survived"

I can imagine one clown traipsing around the countryside wielding a hoover!!

 

[Tom Bick]

Totally agree it is poor advice, maybe they need to be challenged at all the bee conventions, to come clean about their findings. They should have issued a statement a few weeks ago, whether queen cells had been found. The advice they have given Erichalfbee will only cause panic and Karol won't be happy.

Do you know Asian Hornets produce queen cells? I understand it's a bit vague as to cells that produce workers and queens.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Do you know Asian Hornets produce queen cells? I understand it's a bit vague as to cells that produce workers and queens.

Yes that's what I was told. Maybe they can't find a suitable entomologist to make a diagnosis on the nest. I worry that gardeners not beekeepers will start putting spring traps out.

 

[beebopper]

Not many I think Erichalfbee - most people have no idea. It was a minor news story for a day or so.

 

[Erichalfbee]

So with that advice, the common hornet (Vespa Crabbo) is set for a pasting next year then!!
Surely it would be more logical to the use of non selective traps in a radius from the "area 45" (the Tetbury nest) and in the areas far from the destroyed nest, aka the rest of the uk, selective traps.
i had thought the NBY were issuing diagrams of traps with this in mind!! change of goal posts??

http://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/attachment.php?attachmentid=13685&stc=1&d=1477589302

Richard, do you know if the queens are noticeably larger than the workers? The NBU stand had an Asian hornet in a jar and a European one in another. The European hornet was much much bigger so I presume it was a queen.

 

[beebopper]

So with that advice, the common hornet (Vespa Crabbo) is set for a pasting next year then!!
Surely it would be more logical to the use of non selective traps in a radius from the "area 45" (the Tetbury nest) and in the areas far from the destroyed nest, aka the rest of the uk, selective traps.
i had thought the NBY were issuing diagrams of traps with this in mind!! change of goal posts??

http://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/attachment.php?attachmentid=13685&stc=1&d=1477589302

Absolutely makes sense to me.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Not many I think Erichalfbee - most people have no idea. It was a minor news story for a day or so.

I hope so.

 

[Plenty of honey]

Richard, do you know if the queens are noticeably larger than the workers? The NBU stand had an Asian hornet in a jar and a European one in another. The European hornet was much much bigger so I presume it was a queen.

Generally the queens are slightly bigger, but it seems noticeably bigger difference in the common hornet worker and the common hornet queen.

You can tell common hornet queens starting a nest in the months of May and June, because you usually hear them first and they seem huge, "like a bus with wings". As the season progresses and if you do spot one just before she finally settled down to a summer of laying in the nest, leaving the workers do the foraging, they often go more of a browny colour and become even larger and cumbersome in flight.

There appears to be not a lot of noticeable difference between the Asian hornet workers and queens. Just this week i have emptied out a few traps as i am collecting another load to send off for education purposes and all of a sudden there is a few that i think are recently emerged queens. There just that bit bigger and longer.
In our outside (but covered) storage area there is a few larger asian hornets looking to roost, find somewhere to hibernate, so these get preferential badminton practice!!

In terms of inspecting the nest at Tetbury, it would only be a qualified entomologist, that would be able to tell if some queen cells had been produced. Their not like queen cells as we know. They would be very similar to those of the worker but i would say possibly in a different part of the "tiered" section of the nest.
Dont forget, if they did produce queens, they still would have to go out and mate with drones, from the same colony, before they would become viable queens to hibernate for next year.
In my mind the nest and all its contents could and probably have all been destroyed( meaning no viable queens were produced). Another 4 weeks , then thats another story. who can tell.
Unless we have a definitive report from the NBU, i am only speculation on what little i know, but that isn't a lot more!!

Worth mentioning that they did give a very accurate, correct description of the Asian Hornet during Tuesday night's Autumn watch. Good to see some correct information going out at peak viewing times.

I also like the way that Chris Packham said the words " to slow down its eventual arrival"

 

[Plenty of honey]

Not many I think Erichalfbee - most people have no idea. It was a minor news story for a day or so.

As Karol said earlier in this thread, its the beekeepers that will be the foot soldiers of this problem

With the greatest respect the vast majority of the public arent able to differentiate a Bumble for a Honey bee.
Its up to beekeepers to help educate everyone else if they want to keep this at bay for as long as possible.