The Asiatic Frelon queens are now on the loose ! You may have seen Stella’s timely post recently. Recent new knowledge has changed our understanding of these deadly predators - are you up to speed ? It is vital that we all do our bit to stem the tide, and trap the Queens - recently the Sud-Ouest newspaper ran a piece about a small beekeeper in the Lot with only 5 hives. Last year, she lost the lot. It costs thousands to replace these colonies, and she has had to resort to an online Fundraiser to do so.
It used to be thought that the Asiatic Intruder attacked and killed the native honey bees individually - which, whilst true, does not account for wholesale destruction of hives. Each hive at the moment is home to up to 15,000 bees; and by mid-summer between 50-80,000. No frelon dare enter in without certain death.
What is now known is that several Asiatics simply hover outside the entrance to the hive. The bees cannot enter or leave. They become more & more distressed - and literally just die en masse from stress. Then in go the Invaders to retrieve the honey - and take it back to their own nest . . . . leaving tens of thousands of dead honey bees.
The solution being worked on is for the beekeeper to install a metal mesh screen in front of their hives, with a low electric charge which the Asiatics detect and don’t like - so they fly away - it’s sufficiently distanced that the bees fly inside it, and enter the hive safely.
Each and every Queen Asiatic Frelon will - unless you stop it - establish a nest that will produce up to 350 new queens for next year, and over 1,000 males. You do the math !
These 350 ready-fertilised queens hibernate through the winter - in barns, roofs, trees, rocks. When temperatures reach 15° or more they emerge - feeling hungry. They are doing so now - so now is the time to trap them, don’t leave it ‘till the summer because you will only catch workers (which will all die off next winter anyway). At first they make a small, tennis-ball sized nest, while they are feeding themselves before starting the biggy. They don’t re-use old nests.
Trapping them is simple - a cheap mixture of beer and sweet concentrated fruit juice (strawberry and suchlike) in anything that once inside, they can’t get out of. All Brico’s sell them cheaply, or you can cut a plastic water bottle by hand and make your own. Bees are not attracted by it.
Last weekend I trapped 20 already - in south-west France (Dordogne). This is exceptionally early. Photo attached to prove it - come and join the battle !
When we moved to France there weren’t any Asian Hornets.
We had the (huge ) European Hornet buzzing around and in and out of the house every now and again, late afternoon/early evening. I’d never seen anything like them!
Frightened me to death at first, but a neighbour said (more or less) “just ignore them, they aren’t looking for a fight with you”. (seems they only attack if they feel threatened)
He was quite correct. I forced myself NOT to flap at them, not to let them know I was aware of them as they loudly buzzed around (mostly at ceiling height).
Finally they would decide to fly back out through the window. They didn’t try to get close to us, but seemed more to be “casing the joint” and finding there was nothing of interest to 'em so legged it.
OH quickly fitted mesh/screens to as many windows as possible to reduce their visits (excellent against mozzies as well).
Asian Hornets (blacker and smaller) are around throughout the day and whilst (possibly) not actually looking for a fight with us humans, they are far more inquisitive and intrusive.
I would rather they went back to Asia asap.
Stella is right - hornets won’t attack you unless you strike first ! This is why it is so important to get traps up now, to catch the fertile Queens. In the summer all you will see are workers out looking for food to take back to the nest to feed the grubs; that’s all they are interested in.
However, if you should get stung, it can be very serious. Hornets (like wasps) do not leave their sting behind, and can therefore sting repeatedly. Get help if you can (such as at a pharmacy), or dial 15 for assistance.
Frankly, I hope no-one kills European Hornets in the traps intended for the Asian Hornets… The European Hornets are part of the local insect world… the Asian Hornet is an unwanted, vicious, deadly visitor, wrecking the local insect scene and also far more aggressive/threatening to humans IMHO.
yes, I’ve been plastering them about as well, year after year wherever I can.
Also. by word of mouth.
Yesterday, purely by chance I found myself explaining to a small, spellbound audience… how to differentiate between a shrew and a vole; a poisonous snake from a non-venomous one and how to correctly identify swallows, house martins and swifts
Point of linguistic order Mme.
All snakes are venomous to a greater or lessor degree:
(of an animal, especially a snake) secreting venom, or capable of injecting venom by means of a bite or sting.
But no snakes are poisonous:
(of a substance, plant, or animal) causing or capable of causing death or illness if taken into the body.
I believe toads fall into the latter category.
But back to the point of the thread, I will be asking my bee friends what they do in defence and, if they are unaware of it I will point them towards the info above. Not seen any frelons of either species here before .
No problem David
You know far more about the correct words than I do.
I will try not to use the word poisonous and imprint venomous on my English braincells but it will not fix easily. For some reason, as kids we called snakes poisonous…
I promise to learn the following phrase by heart…
“La Vipère est le seul serpent venimeux vivant en liberté en France.”
In case I’m asked to do a repeat performance
Thankfully, yesterdays little impromptu discussion was great fun and even if I used the wrong words, the message about the dangers re some snakes was taken on-board by everyone.
) European Hornet buzzing around and in and out of the house every now and again, late afternoon/early evening. I’d never seen anything like them!
The European Hornets are part of the local insect world… the Asian Hornet is an unwanted, vicious, deadly visitor, wrecking the local insect scene and also far more aggressive/threatening to humans IMHO.
