hornets nest

[peteinwilts]

Could you move them so they are close to a wasp nest?
Bit of a double edged sword!

The Hornet box is not far from the bees... I don't know if anyone else is not having problems, but I am having almost no trouble with wasps so far this year (including the apiary's away from the hornets!)

 

[greatbritishhoney]

... I don't know if anyone else is not having problems, but I am having almost no trouble with wasps so far this year (including the apiary's away from the hornets!)

Ditto.
Seen about 1 wasp in the apiary so far this year.

 

[tonybloke]

Well I dont like Hornets nor Wasps, I like Bees .http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5QxUR-mZVM

yep, but we don't have those hornets in the UK ( yet)

 

[Chris Luck]

yep, but we don't have those hornets in the UK

Awwww, don't spoil it Tony....your just letting those silly little facts get in the way again.

Anyway, I think I may have a dragons nest on my neighbours land, will they hurt my bees and should I slay them? I'll try and get a photo later when things cool down.

Chris

 

[tonybloke]

Anyway, I think I may have a dragons nest on my neighbours land, will they hurt my bees and should I slay them? I'll try and get a photo later when things cool down.

Chris

Kool, Chris!!
is it the red-throated, fire-belching variety, or the green-backed sulphur-breathing one?

 

[MJBee]

Luminos - Get a cheap badminton racquet, a good hit reduces a hornet to quarter inch cubes

 

[Luminos]

Luminos - Get a cheap badminton racquet, a good hit reduces a hornet to quarter inch cubes

Ha ha! I remember you posted this tip before, MJBee. I have just been watching the hive as per Chris's advice and within 10 mins there were 2 Asian hornets (as per Chris's photo) and a European one. I swiped them with the nearest thing, which happened to be the Varroa monitoring board.
Too much swish to hurt them but they didn't come back...
...not yet, anyway...

(I have one of those electric bat things for zapping flies, do you think it would work?)

 

[hombal]

(I have one of those electric bat things for zapping flies, do you think it would work?)

Plug it into the mains and it will.

 

[Chris Luck]

(I have one of those electric bat things for zapping flies, do you think it would work?)

It should do but like Mike I have cheap rackets strategically placed around the hives, mine are plastic. Plastic is good because you can just leave them laying around in all weathers and wonder round with them but I only whack the Asian Hornets, the others are native and have lived with bees for a long time.

Now, about those dragons.

Chris

 

[TBRNoTB]

Its a posh version of a weekly cheque from the government I think

good un!

 

[rink123]

Awwww, don't spoil it Tony....your just letting those silly little facts get in the way again.

Anyway, I think I may have a dragons nest on my neighbours land, will they hurt my bees and should I slay them? I'll try and get a photo later when things cool down.

Chris

LOL, I Know that , but thay might come in time ? like we dont have A F B , in the uk do we

 

[Steve Dyer]

Funnily enough Chris, related to this and the scaremongering over honeybee decline, we had a friend in France tell us how the Asian hornet was expected to wipe out all French bees in the next couple of years!

There are different types of hornet. The UK one predates beehives a bit. One Asian one has a tactic of attacking a bee colony in a major battle until all the bees are dead and then stripping it out. This was shown on a TV documentary this year, but I haven't heard that this is the same as the "asian hornet" which has got to France and is expected here.

Steve

 

[Chris Luck]

No it isn't the same as this type of Asian Hornet which is the one we have in France which can in exceptional cases mean the end of a bee colony if they are present in sufficient numbers and action isn't taken.

Chris

 

[RoseCottage]

As with most things there are Asian hornets and Giant Asian hornets. The ones spotted in France are not giant Asian hornets (im sure I posted links in a previous run on this subject). They can cause serious problems in exceptional circumstances although the mist basic measures (reducing entrance sizes, deploying Wasp traps, etc) usually do more than enough to protect a colony.

The YouTube video massacres (for some people a cross between bee porn and snuff.movie...) are of the giant Asian hornet.

Hornets are amazing and becoming rarer (in relative terms). As threats go they shouldn't really rank up there. The original OP wondered whether to leave them...absolutely and spend a lot of time near them...they are very interesting. They are quite shy and retiring creatures.

This summer I had wasps, hornets, bombus, and honey bees literally climbing over one another on some old combs I had mistakenly left out. It was all bums and heads - no-one killed anyone. It was obvious that they can co-exist quite happily. The hornets were by far the biggest of the gang and were the least aggressive or push.

I took some pics and should post them when I can get them off the camera,
Sam

 

[peteinwilts]

A few moons ago I found some hornets living in a swarm box.

I left them alone until Autumn and took down the swarm box after I was sure there was no more activity. I have finally got around to uploading the picture.

When opening the box, there was a faint unplesant smell. The Hornets had made the nest hanging from one of the rails in the box (the picture is how it would be upside down.) The side of the nest broke open as I removed it from the swarm box.

I imagined there would be an empty nest. To my surprise it had a quite a large number of dead brood and a couple of fully formed hornets dead in the nest. No real sign of adults in numbers.

Is it normal for Hornets to keep brooding until the cold kills them off, or do we think it was the unseasonable summer that finished them off?

 

[Erichalfbee]

Can't help with your brooding question,sorry,but what a great picture.
You can see the silk caps the grubs have spun before pupating,unlike bees where the adults cap the cells off with wax; fascinating, thanks for the photo.

 

[tkwinston4]

Its a shame we feel the need to kill something that makes such stunning masterpieces.

 

[Finman]

A few moons ago I found some hornets living in a swarm box.

I left them alone until Autumn and took down the swarm box after I was sure there was no more activity. I have finally got around to uploading the picture.

When opening the box, there was a faint unplesant smell. The Hornets had made the nest hanging from one of the rails in the box (the picture is how it would be upside down.) The side of the nest broke open as I removed it from the swarm box.

I imagined there would be an empty nest. To my surprise it had a quite a large number of dead brood and a couple of fully formed hornets dead in the nest. No real sign of adults in numbers.

Is it normal for Hornets to keep brooding until the cold kills them off, or do we think it was the unseasonable summer that finished them off?

somebony/ one has collapsed the box upside down (human, cat...) and brood have died.
Hive cannot be in that position.

 

[Finman]

Hornets are amazing and becoming rarer (in relative terms).
Sam

how do you know that?

There are years when they are plenty and years, when they may vanish in the middle of summer.

Here wasps' main food is aphids. They hunt them on trees even in evening. A big humming sounds in woods on day and on dim evening. they are usefull assistants of gardeners. When they find tree leaves full of aphids, they clean it in the couple of days. But that happens in late summer when they are numerous.

In Finlad they start the hive works in the first week of June. Big invasion comes from Russia if our population is zero. So do bumbble bees.

It was studied just in USA that bumbble bees have a genepool which covers half of USA. It is thousands of kilometres wide. I just heard that you have in France vast fprest areas. Nothing disturbes wasps in their natural environment.

 

[Luminos]

Vast forest areas, yes - but the hornets still seem to prefer to nest on my house