[chrismahon]

Picking up from MAK's thread about wolves there was a mention of Asian Hornets. So I did a bit of research on-line to discover that they probably arrived in France from China in 2004 with a shipment of pottery. They are found mainly in the woods of Dordogneshire at the moment but have recently killed someone further South towards us. 40 -60 people a year are killed by them in China and there are about 1500 serious injuries.


They are identified (from ordinary hornets) by having yellow feet and are mathematically predicted to arrive in the UK this year. The UK would be their ideal habitat apparently.


The European bees have no defence against them so they are easy prey. One beekeeper in Dordogne sits by his hives all day with a fly swat! We had a hornets nest in a shed I was moving and I had to freeze it (with plumbers pipe freezing spray) and bin it into a sealed container. I didn't hang around to check to colour of their feet. They spray pheromones onto an 'attacker' which the hive then homes in on to attack. So after one sting you can be engulfed by hornets.


Anyone seen them further North?

[MAK]

The Asian hornet can destroy a hive of 70000 bees in a day and are devastating indigenous populations. In China the bee will swarm a hornet and essentially boil it alive. The boiling point of the bee is 70 and the asian hornet a lot lower. European bees are yet to learn this defence.
There was a terrible report in the paper here ( 2 years ago)  of a woman walking her child in a pram attacked by hornets. A man whent to her rescue. Both died of multiple stings but the baby was untouched.
One evening I once killed a hornet in the house and within a few minutes there were a couple of others baging against the winow trying to get in. I never kill a hornet now for fear of his mates comming on mass.

[suziequeue]

Oh God!   This is all I need.


Having been rushed to hospital with anaphylactic shock last summer after having disturbed a wasps nest and got stung several times, I won't stand a chance against this lot. And I keep leaving my epipens behind anyway 

[chrismahon]

There are no reports of them in the UK that I have seen Suziequeue. But the death in the neighbouring Department was the result of a single sting. The nest I froze was done at night. They awoke during the process but I managed to freeze each one that came out. It was a very small nest with perhaps 20 hornets in it. The shed was then demolished but during the process one hornet that had been out all night returned to the nest. So they must range over a very large area.

[Lesley Silvester]

This is scary.

[HesterF]

Yep, the bee community is on high alert. I'm far South-East of Kent so the most likely entry point for the hornets and the local beekeeping association has been circulating pictures of the hornets to look out for. Seeing as I'm not even keeping ahead of varroa at the moment, I've no idea what this hornet will do. I do find it hard to imagine how one hornet can overcome 70,000 bees though. I've seen the footage of bees attacking a hornet with the big bundle (very impressive to watch) but I didn't realise that was the Asian bees. Maybe I should be out teaching my bees how to bundle quick smart.

H