hornet trap supplied by Fera

[Meg]

Oh I see what you mean now.

About the traps - I don't know if they are exactly the same ones, but a lot of research had been done into making sure that these traps will trap the Asian Hornet and not 'our' hornet and will also let honeybees and other smaller insects escape (not that honeybees will be attracted anyway). As the season progresses it is recommended that small amounts of protein (raw fish or meat) are added to the traps as that is what the hornets will be looking for once they have established their nests.

Beebase has plenty of information about the hornets, traps, spread in France, contingency plans and links to other sites. We really do not want them to establish here, so please everyone, keep your eyes open if nothing else!

Meg

 

[Travelator]

There are instructions for making a DIY version of the Asian Hornet trap linked on the BeeBase site. Their design involves a plastic drink bottle, some wire mesh, and a plumbing waste fitting.

The assembly instructions explain some of the design features:
- 7mm entry holes are big enough for Asian hornets, but too small for European
- 5.5mm exit holes allow smaller insects (including wasps?) to escape
- wire mesh stops trapped insects falling into the bait
- removable top section allows the trapped hornet to be removed (handling instructions not very clear!)
- awning over the top keeps the rain out

You could probably cook up a cheaper or better variation using the same basic design features.

 

[Karol]

Oh I see what you mean now.

About the traps - I don't know if they are exactly the same ones, but a lot of research had been done into making sure that these traps will trap the Asian Hornet and not 'our' hornet and will also let honeybees and other smaller insects escape (not that honeybees will be attracted anyway). As the season progresses it is recommended that small amounts of protein (raw fish or meat) are added to the traps as that is what the hornets will be looking for once they have established their nests.

Beebase has plenty of information about the hornets, traps, spread in France, contingency plans and links to other sites. We really do not want them to establish here, so please everyone, keep your eyes open if nothing else!

Meg

I hate to say it but if the asian hornet lands in the UK then there's very little that can be done except to try to protect hives. My experience of working with (Crabro) hornets is that the vast majority of them enter traps to hunt other wasps. They don't as a rule enter for the 'syrup'. It may be that the asian hornet behaves more closely to vespula species but is just a more specialized bee predator (although I have witnessed the destruction of bee hives first hand by germanica hunting bees (not going for honey) and seeing it was enough to make you weep).

Having read the Beebase info I do worry that the traps used in France may have attracted more than they killed possibly skewing the results or making the situation worse for French bee keepers. 400 plus asian hornets per trap is a significant number which could be indicative of a low efficiency trap if asian hornets swarm feed which I suspect they do.

 

[merylvingien]

I hate to say it but if the asian hornet lands in the UK then there's very little that can be done except to try to protect hives. My experience of working with (Crabro) hornets is that the vast majority of them enter traps to hunt other wasps. They don't as a rule enter for the 'syrup'. It may be that the asian hornet behaves more closely to vespula species but is just a more specialized bee predator (although I have witnessed the destruction of bee hives first hand by germanica hunting bees (not going for honey) and seeing it was enough to make you weep).

Having read the Beebase info I do worry that the traps used in France may have attracted more than they killed possibly skewing the results or making the situation worse for French bee keepers. 400 plus asian hornets per trap is a significant number which could be indicative of a low efficiency trap if asian hornets swarm feed which I suspect they do.

Hi Carol, i do have some concerns that your business conflicts with your posts here.
Dont get me wrong, up until last year i was promoting and selling your wasp traps, however it would seem that the market wont accept your prices.
Anyway, despite that, i have noticed an agressive although fact filled attack on anything that is not waspbane. I do feel that your trap is worth pushiing, and i would have done if the price wasnt so high and i could have made a profit on it.
But to ridicule virtualy anything else without have putting it through the rigerous tests that your own trap has gone through is unfair and at a best not a good advert for your product or business.
You have stated that the bee side of things is irellevant, but you still keep banging the drum. Why is that?
Are things not as good as you make out?
Lower the price to enable sellers to make a profit!

 

[Karol]

Hi Carol, i do have some concerns that your business conflicts with your posts here.
Dont get me wrong, up until last year i was promoting and selling your wasp traps, however it would seem that the market wont accept your prices.
Anyway, despite that, i have noticed an agressive although fact filled attack on anything that is not waspbane. I do feel that your trap is worth pushiing, and i would have done if the price wasnt so high and i could have made a profit on it.
But to ridicule virtualy anything else without have putting it through the rigerous tests that your own trap has gone through is unfair and at a best not a good advert for your product or business.
You have stated that the bee side of things is irellevant, but you still keep banging the drum. Why is that?
Are things not as good as you make out?
Lower the price to enable sellers to make a profit!

I accept that my postings might be interpreted that way. I try very hard not to cross boundaries but clearly you believe I have. On that basis I will bow out of this thread but before I do I just to clarify a point. I never said that the bee side of things is irrelevant! What I said was that the bee market was an insignificant part of our overall business and that that was never likely to change - not because we don't value bee keepers but because the outdoor catering and leisure pursuits industries and the domestic market are vastly bigger.

I wish you guys the best of luck with the asian hornet and I hope it never makes landfall in the UK.

Kind regards,

Karol

 

[Easy Beesy]

I have spoken to Karol and he comes across as genuinely knowledgeable about wasps, hornets, bees in general. I am impressed by his Waspbane trap but too feel it is expensive. I don't believe however, that is a reason to tackle his integrity and dis him on this forum.
Eb

 

[Moggs]

I would be interested to follow more of this thread. Karol has clearly a lot to offer and I see no issue with any commercial sensitivity in any of these posts. Now that the commercial link has been identified (for what it's worth), I would suggest that it's a healthy discussion.

 

[The Cumbrian]

I would be interested to follow more of this thread. Karol has clearly a lot to offer and I see no issue with any commercial sensitivity in any of these posts. Now that the commercial link has been identified (for what it's worth), I would suggest that it's a healthy discussion.

However with regard to the FERA wasp trap in my innocence I assumed they would have taken the best advice available and not just asked the lad who made tea to design a wasp trap.

Am I wrong Karol?

 

[thorn]

However with regard to the FERA wasp trap in my innocence I assumed they would have taken the best advice available and not just asked the lad who made tea to design a wasp trap.

Am I wrong Karol?

FERA is a government agency. That should answer your question about the efficiency of their procurement procedures.

It's almost certainly wildly overpriced and not fit for purpose. But doubtless a minister's relative or friend runs the company they're sourced from, so that's alright.

 

[The Cumbrian]

Thorn I would never call you a cynic but........

I am not certain the above scenario applies to all government purchases, I will wait until Karol has actually had one in his hands before I fully accept your cynicism.

 

[FreeFall]

I accept that my postings might be interpreted that way. I try very hard not to cross boundaries but clearly you believe I have. On that basis I will bow out of this thread...

Karol

I really hope that you do stick around Karol. For what it's worth, you were how I found this wonderful forum last year, when my newly purchased nuc was being robbed by wasps - I did a G**gle (!) search and came across your posts, which were very informative and helped me understand that putting out a load of inefficient traps was counter-productive. I note that you stated your commercial interest in your very first post:

http://beekeepingforum.co.uk/showpost.php?p=152114&postcount=30

Please continue to educate us with your knowledge - I've never known you to advertise your wares on here, in fact you sometimes seem a little embarrassed that the connection is there when all you want to do is to give some sound advice. Stick around and ignore the naysayers!!

I agree that this site cannot allow blatant commercialism if it is to remain impartial and useful but it's getting pathetic now!

Nick

 

[Meg]

Thorn, Cumbrian and all,

The lady at FERA who has been working on all things to do with the Asian Hornet certainly has taken the best advice available. She has been in touch with many of the researchers and beekeepers in France, which given the climate similarities and proximity to ourselves is a good indication of what we can expect.

One of the problems of producing a design for the Hornet trap is that FERA are not able to endorse a particular make of trap (Direct naming is not allowed - a bit like here really ) - hence the details of how to make one and the principles behind it. That way anyone can procur various parts however they wish and still make something that is effective.

Just so that you all know - I had no idea that Karol sold wasp traps.

Also, the idea of these traps is initially to hopefully catch queen hornets when they arrive and so enable them to be identified and prevent the establishment of nests. Karol's comments about 400 hornets being caught meaning that the trap is a low efficeincy one is I think somewhat side tracking. We do not know what time of year that was - early, therefore mostly queens preventing a large number of nests - mid-season, so just reducing the number of potential predators on bee hives - late season, again trapping queens so reducing numbers for the following year. To my mind, any reduction at any time has to be a help, but as I mentioned, the aim at the moment is to trap and identify not to trap to kill.

Meg

 

[The Cumbrian]

Basically I take your point Meg but I see no reason why Fera can't endorse a product, if I remember rightly they named disinfectants in the 2001 Foot and Mouth outbreak - I am fairly sure Jeyes Fluid was mentioned by name among others.

No doubt if my memory is playing tricks somebody will correct me. But if I am right then the situation of Asian Hornets is at least as serious. OK not from a financial point of view but from the arrival of something which has the potential to be an ever present threat to both bees and wildlife.

 

[Meg]

Hi Cumbrian,

I take your point too, but I think I am right in saying that as the Asian Hornet is an exotic pest and not a notifiable disease, it falls into a different category to foot and mouth. A problem for us and our bees, but different.

Also, maybe Jeyes fluid is a one off recipe? I don't know, whereas there are a lot of different makes of trap out there.

Meg

 

[Karol]

Thorn, Cumbrian and all,

The lady at FERA who has been working on all things to do with the Asian Hornet certainly has taken the best advice available. She has been in touch with many of the researchers and beekeepers in France, which given the climate similarities and proximity to ourselves is a good indication of what we can expect.

One of the problems of producing a design for the Hornet trap is that FERA are not able to endorse a particular make of trap (Direct naming is not allowed - a bit like here really ) - hence the details of how to make one and the principles behind it. That way anyone can procur various parts however they wish and still make something that is effective.

Just so that you all know - I had no idea that Karol sold wasp traps.

Also, the idea of these traps is initially to hopefully catch queen hornets when they arrive and so enable them to be identified and prevent the establishment of nests. Karol's comments about 400 hornets being caught meaning that the trap is a low efficeincy one is I think somewhat side tracking. We do not know what time of year that was - early, therefore mostly queens preventing a large number of nests - mid-season, so just reducing the number of potential predators on bee hives - late season, again trapping queens so reducing numbers for the following year. To my mind, any reduction at any time has to be a help, but as I mentioned, the aim at the moment is to trap and identify not to trap to kill.

Meg

Thank you to all of you who have invited me to continue contributing - it made my day!

Setting up wasp traps in spring raises all sorts of other problems (irrespective of whether they are high or low efficiency traps). What we cannot afford to do ecologically is decimate our natural wasp populations to try to prevent one species establishing itself. An average wasp nest (vespula vulgaris or germanica) will eradicate between 4 to 5 metric tonnes of insect pests in one season. There are as many as 1000 wasp nests per square mile so wasps eradicate between 4000 to 5000 metric tonnes of insect pests per square mile per year. If we set traps in spring which then decimate indigenous wasp species, we will reap all the rewards of a massive rebound pest problem. Not only will we see a massive rise in crop damage from grazing and burrowing pests, we will also see an increase in pest vectored diseases such as Lyme's disease. It would not surprise me if bee keepers were unaware that one of the reasons they can cross fields of long grass on their way to their hives with relative safety is that wasps help keep down tick populations.

400 queens caught at the beginning of the season just doesn't sit with wasp population dynamics and life cycle. I'm not saying those numbers are not possible - just very highly improbable. Queens in spring are caught incidentally in either low efficiency or high efficiency traps. Workers are caught incidentally in high efficiency traps and collectively in low efficiency traps. All of which means that a solitary trap would have to attract almost half the population of queens within a square mile purely on the efficacy of its lure dispersal. That just doesn't stack up with our experience regardless of what trap is used.

The window to catch queens in spring is very narrow and is a shifting target. It is entirely dependent on the duration that the queen has no brood. Once she has a brood she will ignore sweet baited traps concentrating instead on hunting for her brood. Her brood will then feed her. Once the first of her brood fledges and she become nest bound then her colony is almost assured of successful maturation.

In my opinion, using protein baited traps is ecologically irresponsible for the reasons given above.

The best that we can hope for is that the channel keeps the asian hornet from landing in the UK. If it does land then the only real option I see, is to have proactive nest eradication following confirmed identification (and I suspect that Dolichovespula media will be confused with the asian hornet and suffer as a result) together with hive protection measures. I also suspect that the problem might peak and then subside quite naturally as a consequence of natural competition between wasp species asserting itself, i.e. suppression of the asian hornet by predominantly germanica and vulgaris.

The assertion that the topography of France and the UK is similar is in my humble opinion quite wrong. Hornet populations in the UK tend to reflect higher densities of stone and pippin fruit planting - scrumpy country for a better word. The reason is that hornets specialize in hunting other wasps which tend to congregate around such areas. In France there is a preponderance of vine fruit and this may dramatically skew incidence and populations as such areas may be more conducive to the asian hornet. I wouldn't draw too much comfort from this because from what I can see, the asian hornet behaves more like germanica or media and the colony size suggests that it is an all round predator rather than a specialised predator (like the European hornet). Does any one have any hard and fast data of hive casualty rates in France attributed directly to the asian hornet? Only from experience, the average loss of hives to indigenous wasps can be as high as 10% anyway. It may be that the asian hornet hasn't actually changed hive losses overall. It may just be that the asian hornet being visibly different in appearance, has attracted more focused attention?

To those that have asked me to comment on the Fera trap I defer for obvious reasons.

Should the asian hornet establish itself as a problem in the UK then as a company we will accelerate the development of a hive protection device that we have been idling with so there may still be a little hope beyond the horizon if the worst comes to the worst.

Kind regards,

Karol

 

[Hivemaker.]

the aim at the moment is to trap and identify not to trap to kill.

What trap,identify... and then let them go.

 

[BeeJayBee]

I'm learning a lot from this thread. Thank you.

Fera seems to be updating the Asian Hornet pages quite often. There's a lot to read there too.

What trap,identify... and then let them go.

I don't think so, there's information about sending samples by post, but it says that photographs are as useful. I guess they mean by email.

https://secure.fera.defra.gov.uk/beebase/index.cfm?pageid=208

If you think you have seen an Asian hornet, please notify the GB Non Native Species Secratariat alert email address at [email protected] immediately.​

I see no reason why Fera can't endorse a product, if I remember rightly they named disinfectants in the 2001 Foot and Mouth outbreak - I am fairly sure Jeyes Fluid was mentioned by name among others.

Defra has a list of disinfectants approved "for statutory use" in England, Wales and Scotland. Jeyes Fluid is on the list. At the time of writing Jeyes Fluid is NOT approved for use against Foot and Mouth, Swine Vesicular Disease, Tuberculosis or 'General' orders. It is only approved for "Diseases of Poultry Order and the Avian Influenza and Influenza of Avian Origin in Mammals Order". http://disinfectants.defra.gov.uk/Default.aspx?Module=ApprovalsList_SI

I don't think that approving a product is the same as endorsing a product.

 

[The Cumbrian]

I don't think that approving a product is the same as endorsing a product.

Fair enough so why don't they approve a named hornet trap to ensure that the correct ones are used?

 

[tonybloke]

Fair enough so why don't they approve a named hornet trap to ensure that the correct ones are used?

why ask the forum?

why not ask Fera?

 

[The Cumbrian]

why ask the forum?

Because I thought (perhaps wrongly) that I was having a discussion with Meg who seemed to have some fairly detailed background knowledge of what Fera did and BeeJoyful who also seemed to know what they were talking about.

If I have got things wrong and the forum isn't for discussion between like minded and knowledgeable people I apologise.