Asian hornet

[polomadh]

Can we begin to assume that with the lack of reported capture of Asian hornets in traps means that the tetbury incident last year has been contained, or is it too early to tell?

 

[madasafish]

Can we begin to assume that with the lack of reported capture of Asian hornets in traps means that the tetbury incident last year has been contained, or is it too early to tell?

The Tetbury hornet was discovered in September 2016...It's only (just) August..

 

[B+.]

The Tetbury hornet was discovered in September 2016...It's only (just) August..

Did you notice the piece on non-native species (and the Asian hornet in particular) on Gardeners World last week? They are keeping it in the news.

 

[madasafish]

Did you notice the piece on non-native species (and the Asian hornet in particular) on Gardeners World last week? They are keeping it in the news.

Yes.. And the result is beekeepers kill native hornets (on this site)

 

[Somerford]

Sadly native hornets will be casualties in the spring Hornet traps

It's still possibly too early for any to be seen in great numbers, if at all.
Not enough is known yet about the attrition rate of Hornet queens surviving more northerly climates over winter, one would hope they struggled but in the insect world nothing is ever easy to predict as we all know as beekeepers !

KR

S


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Beefriendly]

Sadly native hornets will be casualties in the spring Hornet traps

Yes, hornet traps catching hornets, true to their name at least... But if spring trapping discovers the main threat of Asian hornets and helps prevent or delays their imminent invasion then their sacrifices will not have been in vain.

 

[beesbeesbees]

Wait so is it the Asian hornet(Vespa velutina) Or is it the Asian giant hornet(Vespa mandarinia)

 

[Anduril]

Not the latter.

 

[peteinwilts]

Yes, hornet traps catching hornets, true to their name at least... But if spring trapping discovers the main threat of Asian hornets and helps prevent or delays their imminent invasion then their sacrifices will not have been in vain.

The current advisory is to have indescriminate traps within described target zones.

European Hornets are good guys. Low numbers, small nests, and they eat wasps.

 

[MartinL]

Can we begin to assume that . . . . ?

Someone had to do it!

You're tempting Fate!

 

[isc26]

Foundress queens form primary nests which are smaller & harder to spot, once established larger secondary nests are made housing up to 6,000 hornets. These are often high in trees and spotted once the leaves fall. So yes it is probably too early to be thinking of successful extermination and containment. Some think the 2016 finds may have been from nests established in 2015 .

 

[Karol]

The chance of speculative trapping ever detecting velutina is so vanishingly small that it is a complete nonsense. Given the collateral damage caused it also borders on the environmentally criminal.

The fact that landfall has been detected on a couple of occasions means that there is an overwhelming statistical probability that most landfalls to date have gove undetected but have still failed to result in velutina establishing itself.

The most sensible approach to this is to simply monitor your hives regularly for signs of hawking and then respond when and in the unlikely event that it happens. Then it's a question of notifying the authorities and employing catch, poison and release tactics to destroy the nest before maturation and the release of new sexual progeny.

 

[Beelzebub]

I'd query the "unlikely" part of your post. Also, finding all Asian Hornet nests would prove to be difficult.

 

[charlievictorbravo]

I'd query the "unlikely" part of your post. Also, finding all Asian Hornet nests would prove to be difficult.

The way the nest at Tetbury was found is interesting. The SBIs found the AHs feeding at a site of good-flowering ivy. They were feeding on the ivy as well as all of the insects that were themselves feeding on the ivy flowers. In order to find the hornets' nest, they used a bee-lining technique and took a compass bearing on the direction that the hornets flew off (to their nest). They could not find the nest so a second artificial feeding site was set up some distance away (150 metres rings a bell) to attract wasps, bees, hoverflies, etc. and of course Asian Hornets. This was successful and they were able to get a second compass bearing on the nest. They plotted this on a large scale map and found the spot where the nest should have been. They did not initially find the nest because they were told that it was unlikely to be in a coniferous tree but it was eventually spotted in a pine tree exactly where predicted.

The 'catch, poison and release' tactics were not used as it is not a method recommended by DEFRA although it has been found to be successful by Richard, our Brittany correspondent!

I think the most important thing that beekeepers can do to protect against the Asian Hornet is to learn the identify the beast at a glance. It should be as familiar as a honeybee or a bumblebee or a wasp. Beekeepers should bore their non-beekeeping friends with talk about Asian Hornets so that they are aware of it too. Knowledge is power!

CVB

 

[Karol]

Very interesting post CVB. Thank you.

Couple of things:

The fact that they were feeding on ivy whilst in their hunting phase suggests that they are not able to make ends meet and have to supplement their diet to get by, i.e. they are unable to get enough insect prey for the brood to trophalactically feed their adults. There's a reason why native hornets are only 200 to 400 strong and there's a reason why vulgaris and germanica are the physical size they are with colonies of circa 5000. I'm still of the opinion that velutina will find it difficult to establish itself in the UK.

As for DEFRA then their stance reference catch poison and release is completely non sensical and shows an utter failure to grasp the realities of existing wasp control in the UK. There are hundreds of thousands of wasp nests treated every year. Each time a nest is treated the vast majority of poisoned wasps i.e. millions of them, fly off to drop somewhere away from the nest. So go figure when it comes to releasing a handful of poisoned velutina!

 

[Beefriendly]

there's a reason why vulgaris and germanica are the physical size they are with colonies of circa 5000. [/QUOTE}

Each time a nest is treated the vast majority of poisoned wasps i.e. millions of them, fly off to drop somewhere away from the nest

 

[Karol]

Yes Beefriendly, when you multiply hundreds of thousands of treated nests by thousands of poisoned resident wasps that fly off to drop you get millions collectively across the country!

 

[Ayer]

I really hope there aren't more of these Asian hornets hanging around. They're scary!

 

[Plenty of honey]

Sadly native hornets will be casualties in the spring Hornet traps
/QUOTE]

Its very early days yet her in North Brittany, but,...... so far hardly any Asian Hornets and worryingly, very few common hornets.
We were plagued by Asians this time last year, i can distinctly remember seeing loads around recently created nucleus colonies.
Over the winter period the recently Aglomated communes here, now covering a huge area of perhaps 150 square miles, have grouped together and combining efforts have reduced cost of traps considerably. Trapping in every commune, estimated approx 5000 traps or more. i havent got detailed or accurate figures yet, but it certainly seems too have had an effect. what the effect will be on our poor native hornet, only time will tell, but, i honestly think its not going to be a positive effect but what else can we do. again, i trapped in mid march and only caught queens Asian hornets, from around mid may, queen common hornets started to turn up, sadly trapped too! such is the dilemma we face!

 

[Karol]

Given that velutina has become established in your area I think there is justification for setting traps in spring but this should only be for a limited period until velutina numbers drop off sufficiently to switch to monitoring and then reacting with targeted eradication, i.e. using catch poison and release or tracking back to the nest. In contrast there certainly isn't the justification for setting traps in the spring in the UK.

Thinking about what CVB posted, if traps are used early on in an infestation then there's little if any chance of tracking foragers back to the nest so trapping might actually help velutina become established!