help with important issue please (1 Viewer)

[Trunkles]

Hello everyone,

I have joined this forum with a cause in mind. I keep bees and live in Torbay where I am on the committee of Torbay Bee keepers Association. I am also working with a Devon group of bee keepers who are forming teams of like minded apiarists who are going to be the first line of defense in Devon against the invasion of Asian Hornet that could come to the UK any time next year

Are there any beekeepers on this site and has the topic of Asian Hornet been raised? I ask because although bee keepers will know of the danger we face a real threat to our honey bees and other pollinators if the Asian Hornet (AH) gets established in the UK. It could wipe out honey bees and then you would get no more of that lovely sticky sweet stuff to have on your cakes and breakfast. crops could fail because of lack of pollination and its not a nice beast to be stung by. When I searched other camping websites it seemed campers in general were not aware of a problem!

It is thought that the last outbreak in the summer of 2017 in Woolacombe, Devon could have been from a queen hornet brought into the UK from France or Spain in a camping unit Like a Caravan, motorhome or trailer tent.

I am a motorhome owner and last January we went for a two month trip to the Algarve. On our journey down through Franch we saw two or three Asian Hornet (Vespa velutina V.v) nests high in trees. We knew what they were but since it was winter we knew they were effectively dead because the colony dies out when the new queens fly off to find hibernation quarters. But we never dreamed that we could provide a lift to such an unwanted and devastating pest.

It turns out that caravans, motorhomes and trailer tents have nice cosy spaces where insects can hibernate and the of course owners drive home to th UK for the start of spring and the insects find themselves in a new country and in the case of Vespa velutina lots of honey bee hives to provide their food because The UK has lots of bee keepers to provide the honey that we all like.

It is thought that the outbreak in Woolacombe, Devon was just such an instance of a V.v queen coming in a caravan. The owners of the property where the nest was found owned a caravan and had come back fron southern France where the hornet is endemic. They apologised to the bee keeper whose hives were being raided for having the nest in their hedge.

Asian Hornets devastate honey bee colonies by hawking round the entrance of the hive and taking bees on the wing. They bit the head and abdomen off and fly away to their nest with the thorax where they feed the larvae with the protein from the muscles that control the bee's wings and legs

We want to raise awareness of the problem through the camping and caravaning websites. We want owners of rigs to look out for the insect and kill any that get inside units or are found in units. And if you see a bid brownish wasp like insect fly out of your unit when you get bak to UK please get in touch with your local bee keeping association (GOOGLE BBKA) for advice.

There is an app for mobiles which shows what you are looking for and enables you to report an occurrence to the appropriate authorities like the National Bee Unit and the Non Native Species Secretariat. You can find the App (called Asian Hornet App) on Google Play and on the Android app site or if you google 'Asian Hornet Watch'.

In the mean time you can go on Youtube to find lots of video clips to see what the hornet looks like.

Thanks and keep a look out!

 

[f6c]

Welcome aboard

 

[Yorick]

Bee careful.

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[Carol]

Hello Welcome we do have a beekeeper on here but not sure of his forum name at the moment.

 

[Mrsambulancekidd]

Noted.......

 

[scottie]

Seen a documentary recently on the hornets, so aware. Want o say, I got a buzz from it, guess that' a sting in the tail for you uys. Seriously though, I am aware, and know how serious it is.

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[Allanm]

We have a lot of Asian Hornets nearby. There are quite a few different sorts of traps that our local beekeepers use that attract these hornets and wasps but don’t attract or harm bees.

 

[TheBig1]

@DBK devon bee keeper is our resident bee expert, maybe you have met

 

[Hollyberry]

Sadly had lots of Asian hornets in my garden when I lived in France. I suppose it was all the fruit trees ( figs, peaches and plums) that attracted them. Hung traps in the trees to bump off as many as possible. Never occurred to me that I could transport them to the UK in/on my motorhome
Any ideas what motorhomers/caravanners can do to prevent transporting them ?

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[DBK]

Any ideas what motorhomers/caravanners can do to prevent transporting them ?

Not a lot I think, short of fumigating every vehicle as it returns.
Identification of the insect isn't straightforward. The Asian Hornet looks like this:

While our native Hornet, Vespa crabo which does a lot of good, looks like this:

They are very different (to my eye ) seen side by side but I remember from my beekeeping days being called to deal with a "swarm" only to find it was a wasps' nest. Even folk I thought should be able to tell the difference like farmers could make this mistake.
My point is education about the threat is necessary but we shouldn't underestimate the challenge.
We should try to stop the Asian hornet arriving for as long as possible but it might be a losing battle.

 

[dryad]

am guessing they can also 'hitch' a ride on boats and trains too..

and thank you for highlighting the asian hornet issue @Trunkles, our native bees are precious..

 

[Trunkles]

Well firstly thank you for the welcome to the forum and secondly thank you all for taking this issue seriously. I have been chatting on some other camping forums about this issue and a few members there were poo-pooing the idea that there is a problem, that camping vehicles could be vectors or that we ught to do anything about it.

I have been involved in the issue since Iread Martyn Hocking's (he is the chap in Woolacombe who's bees were affected this year) article in Bee Keeper Magazine . I wrote to him with some ideas about Bee Keeping Associations (BKAs) setting up groups to identfy, verify, and track possible incursions of this worrying insect. He got very little help from the National National Bee Unit (NBU) or the Non Native Species Secretariat (NNSS, a Defra body set up to deal with unwanted animal imports and which has only two employees, apparently) who told him it was unlikely to be Asian Hornet as they were very rare in the UK, and that they couldn't do anything until they had specimens! So he had to set about getting photos and film and catching one or two. Of course when he proved it was V.v something hit the proverbial fan and beee inspectors were all over the place, but with a clamp down on communications to the media and public......talk about hush, hush. I am cynical and think government authorities are afraid of the implications of the problem , probably because they know how expensive it will be to deal with a major invasion.

In Devon BKAs are getting their heads together and in Torbay I am forming an AHAT (Asian Hornet Action Team) and we will be there for bee keepers and the public to report possible sighting of the beast. This will lead to quick verification of the presence of V.v. and take some of the pressure off local bee inspectors, who are run off their feet with the other work load of dealing with bee diseases of other kinds. And it will enable me to put my a-other a-hat on when I am involved in spotting hornets

Thanks
to DBK Funster for putting up the pictures. I take you point about there being not much you can do but fumigate units on departure for UK but Educated Sharp Eyes (ESEs ?)are worth a lot in the fight, not only in the camping fraternity but at home as well. And if you do see a strange insect enter your unit get the fly spray out! I personally think there is a risk that colonies of AH could establish in areas where bee keepers are scarce because the population don't know about the risk or what to look for. That's why I hope our movement towards forming AHATs will take off (pardon the unintentional pun) and get the general public informed through the campaign......The ONE SHOW has started the ball rolling with George McGavin's piece about the Woolacombe incident. I am hoping we can to persuade Monty Don of Gardeners World to do a piece since he is a bee keeper and keeps us up to date with his hive labei infrequently. DOes anybody out there know Martha Kearney? We could do with getting her to do a whole program on the subject! However it is a great pitty the local press in the Woolacombe incident showed a picture of our V. Crabro when they were reporting. And Tabloid papers don't help bee-cause they say it is the GIANT Hornet that is coming and it will cause people to die of heart attacks, and all this sensationalist rubbish!

Waht we want is for;
1. people to understand there is a risk to honey production and good insect populations
2. to know what this insect looks like
3. to REPORT it if they think they have seen one. It doesn't matter if it turns out not to be....but it is worse not to report a sighting. OK we dont want to waste Authority's tim but local AHATS can afford to go and have a look as nost members of those teams will be retired and looking for something to keep themselves out of mischief )

Enough of this rambling.....I get carried away because I think it is so important.

Keep your ESEs peeled, folks

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[Eddystone]

Is it the same size as our native Hornet, Vespa crabo?

 

[Anthea M]

Hello and welcome
I love honey and would be very sad if the bees were destroyed .
Thanks for the alert .

 

[Podney]

Is it bigger than a wasp? Need more pictures please,showing side by side,so that we can tell the difference.
Are you setting traps down there anyway? Sorry if Ive missed this in your info.
How serious is the threat to pollination and crops. Wheat and barley not affected,but fruits and beans would suffer I presume. What is the worst case scenario in your opinion.
Thanks.

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[Stonemags76]

Thanks for the information. We will keep our eyes open! Oh, and welcome to the forum!

 

[DBK]

Is it the same size as our native Hornet, Vespa crabo?

The Asian is slightly smaller, typically 20 to 30mm compared to "our" Hornet which typically 25 to 35mm. But they tend not to settle next to a ruler so this isn't perhaps the most reliable way to identify them.
The European is best looked at just a big wasp. The Asian is darker, orange towards its bottom, not the yellow of the European. However, the ends of the legs of the Asian are yellow. The European has dark legs.

 

[Cat53]

Thank you for all the information. I watched a film of Asian hornets attacking a bee hive. They had completely decimated it in minutes. And please put warnings on any photos you put up. Nearly had the screaming heebee heebee, looking at the above photos. I hate wasps and hornets. They spoil summer for me.

Question......can they come over on the outside of a vehicle?

I promise, with my phobia, they will never come over inside!

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[Trunkles]

Good Info DBK ( I guess that is Devon Bee Keeper ) There are lots of photos to look at if you just google 'Asian Hornet Images' and click to load up more images. But be careful as there are also photos of the giant hornets from Asia, Chinese and Japanese. If you go through the images you will find comparisons of hornets and wasps.

In my opinion the Asian is easy to tell if you have seen a European Hornet...... the Asian V.v is slightly smaller than the European and think is a little bigger than a queen wasp, which is the wasp you see flying around in the early spring and say "'.....ing hell that's a big wasp!'" [ Blooming.....count the dots! ] The one thing DBK didn't mention about the European Hornet is that the head and thorax are a chestnut brown colour. If you see a big 'beautifully coloured' wasp (Like a wasp with a sun tan) it will probably be a European Hornet, Vespa crabro ,V.c., and they will often settle for a long time in a nice sunny spot. However they are a woodland specie, I believe, and are not often seen in towns. I think I can safely say I have only seen three or four in my life apart from the dead ones we catch in our traps in the apiary in Churston near Brixham.

The Asian Hornet is very dark in appearance so a big back/brown queen wasp is likkely to be a Vespa velutina 'nigrithorax' . This is the last part of the official Latin name and means dark or black. there are othercolour forms but it is this one that is causing all the trouble in France and Spain etc. Would it be un PC to say we want to keep the nigris out ! :-o

 

[DBK]

Is it bigger than a wasp? Need more pictures please,showing side by side,so that we can tell the difference.
Are you setting traps down there anyway? Sorry if Ive missed this in your info.
How serious is the threat to pollination and crops. Wheat and barley not affected,but fruits and beans would suffer I presume. What is the worst case scenario in your opinion.
Thanks.

The worst case is beekeepers stop keeping bees. That would be very sad but only a fraction of the honey sold in the UK is from the UK. The majority is imported.
Honey bees are good pollinators but apart from those taken to apple orchards in the spring I doubt there would be any measurable economic impact if we lost a lot of our bees.
I'm a bit of a heretic on this subject. You will see it claimed if we lost the pollinators we would all starve. This simply isn't true.
The things which feed the World's population are grasses and their relations. Cereals, rice and maize don't need pollinators. Grass doesn't either so grazing would continue. Many of the beans now grown commercially are also self-pollinating.
I'm not saying we don't need pollinators, of course we do, our diet would be the poorer for their loss but we wouldn't starve.

 

[Trunkles]

Oh dear! the Pictures didn't work well because the Titles didn't upload I shall try again

The first set is of out common wasp

The next set of Photos is of Vespa crabro, European Hornet

ANd the last is a pair of picture to show V crabro compared with V.velutina, the one we are talking about

ASIAN EUROPEAN
Baddy Goody

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[Trunkles]

DBK, Fruit growers in this country would probably suffer........apart from the loss of honey bees a lot of other pollinators fall prey to V.v . If V.v didn't have convenient boxes of succulent honey bees to raid then bumbles and solitary bees become the next best thing, then a load of other insects which offer good bundles of muscles in their thoraxes

I take your point about cereals but how will apples pears, plums, strawberries, gooseberries and so on fair if pollinators decline?

 

[Rob and Val]

Hi, Trunkles, and welcome to the forum. Unfortunately, you have now used your 5 free posts and so, for you to continue in this very interesting discussion, you will need to pay to be a subscriber. You will find it well worth it as there are many resources that you will be able to access that a non-member cannot.

 

[DBK]

DBK, Fruit growers in this country would probably suffer........apart from the loss of honey bees a lot of other pollinators fall prey to V.v . If V.v didn't have convenient boxes of succulent honey bees to raid then bumbles and solitary bees become the next best thing, then a load of other insects which offer good bundles of muscles in their thoraxes

I take your point about cereals but how will apples pears, plums, strawberries, gooseberries and so on fair if pollinators decline?

We would be without apples and pears etc if pollinators decline. We won't starve as a result but our diet would be the poorer of course. There are lots of pollinators and flies do quite a bit as do moths of course.

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[JJ]

Thank goodness Fray Bentos Pies have no need of pollination...


JJ

 

[gus-lopez]

 

[JJ]

I am DEFINITELY on the side of the Hornets tonight


JJ

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[rangi]

DBK,
I take your point about cereals but how will apples pears, plums, strawberries, gooseberries and so on fair if pollinators decline?

Self Polinating Trees , there is a self pol. Victoria Plum for instance, and if I can remember back that far my Braeburn Apples, Wiggens Peach and Elephant heart plums were too. Got a book some where

 

[hilldweller]

there is a self pol. Victoria Plum for instance,

I was expecting one today, hope it turns up tomorrow, it's home is waiting. Got a damson as well to keep it company.

 

[magicsurfbus]

A Euro Hornet Vespa Crabro I spotted not a million miles from Wrexham a couple of years ago in Spring. It fell out of a rafter and didn't survive the night. According to a website that logs these things it was one of the closest sightings to Wales at the time.

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Broken Link Removed

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