Yes. I have caught many Asian hornets in selective traps (6mm holes to let most other beasts to escape) and a few European as accidental ‘bycatch’. The Asian ones are a bit smaller-so any ‘selective trap’ cannot retain the Asian ones without also keeping the Europeans.
The general visual difference is that the Asian ones are a lot darker; more black and some orange. The European ones are more yellow with some black.
As a general comment for future planning: in general, the Asian queens leave hibernation earlier than the European ones, so it is best to set up traps from mid to late February. This is by far the most critical period as each queen removed is possibly one less hive of thousands; removing a few workers later is of marginal effect overall.
I use two types, both ‘fait maison’ to varying degrees. Either a plastic bottle with one of those yellow plastic ‘entry’ caps or a big plastic jug with a yellow screen with a cone pointing for entry. In either case, I drill many 6mm holes to let wasps, flies and bees escape. Let’s protect all of the native biodiversity.
Personally I found the bottles worked much better than the jugs (I did side-by-side tests) and they are easier to make.
The usual recommended bait is 1/3 beer, 1/3 white wine and 1/3 sirop (such as cassis or fruits rouges). Change this bait every week as it goes bad and will stop attracting.
If you get an Asian hornet, leave it as the pheromones will attract others.
Take a break when you see more European than Asian hornets. The difference: Europeans are a bit larger and are yellow with some black. The Asians are smaller with more black and some orange.
By early summer, it is best to change baits when you put traps up again. Now it is workers searching for meat to feed to the larvae in the nest- hence the predation on honey bee colonies. Moist cat food works well but of course also goes bad quickly in the heat so you have to change it a couple times a week; use just a little (half teaspoon).
If you have the motivation, see if your commune would sponsor a workshop on making and installing traps. I discovered this Spring that the Federation of Chasseurs has distributed those yellow plastic caps as ‘entries’ that you can pop a plastic bottle under.
I asked at my mairie and the secretary didn’t know about it but when she looked upstairs in the storeroom, she found a box of them. So that campaign didn’t go far in our commune. Personally, I will contact them in January and offer to coach others on this. If 20 people have 40-80 traps around our commune, it has a much better chance of knocking the population down.
Good luck, all.
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Thanks for picking up the thread again, Dave.
An excellent point about making contact with your Mairie re: traps for next season
Two points arise. First - any hornet you see now is not worth trapping. These are workers who have left the now defunct nest. They are hungry, but will die shortly anyway.
The key to identification is simple - Asian hornets have yellow legs. No other hornet, wasp, or false fly has yellow legs.
This heatwave summer has been bad news for hornets and wasps, in terms of breeding. Because of a rainy Spring and extra dry summer months, food for the grub colonies has been in short supply. Now we have lots of flies pestering us - because there were not enough surviving wasps etc to eat their larvae. Nature adapts very quickly.
Now we will have to be on watch for what next Spring & Summer turn out to be. The way things are, it will probably snow next August !
If it looks like being another hot year, then Dave is right - the Queens will come out of hibernation early, and we need our traps up by the end of February.
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