Catch One, Prevent Thousands

Even though it may seem early to be thinking about protecting our bees against Asian Hornets, we’ve

learned over the years that being prepared is (almost) everything. As the daylight hours lengthen and the temperatures hopefully rise, we’ll be on the lookout for emerging Asian hornet queens. 

In order to help our bees, it’s important to understand the life cycle of this apex predator (one hornet can kill up to 50 bees a day). Only impregnated queens hibernate, with all of the other hornets dying off in late autumn. As soon as temperatures hit double figures these queens will emerge, hungry and weak, seeking carbohydrates to build up their strength so that they can then build a primary nest. They do this all alone, laying just a few eggs at a time in small nests about the size of a tennis ball. Eventually there will be a sufficient number of offspring for the queen to move to a secondary site where the much larger permanent nest will be built by those first hornets that have followed her. She will then remain in the nest, laying eggs, and within six weeks there can be up to 10,000 new hornets in the environment. Up to 200 queens can hibernate from one nest, so it’s simple to understand how these insects have become such an issue for bees and beekeepers.

It's therefore vital for us to set out traps for these queens. By catching them before they can go on to build nests we are saving our bees, our honey harvests, and our sanity – it’s no fun working at the hives when we are constantly having to bat away hawking hornets. A hive inspection should be an enjoyable and peaceful activity but it can become fraught with stress if hornets are at your elbow, attacking bees as you look at frames.

We know that the pregnant queens are hungry and on the lookout for energy-giving carbohydrates so we bait our traps with sugary lures. The traps we use are so selective that we only catch invasive Asian hornet queens, and we feel it is much better to catch one hornet than to have to trap thousands later in the year.