Things are definitely hotting up on the Asian hornet front
The BBKA hosted an online briefing and over 100 Asian hornet local coordinators attended to hear a paper from someone who had visited Jersey last summer and to discuss the current situation nationally.
Attractant can certainly be made at home with something sugary and a bit of added bakers yeast. This can be placed in a small vial fitted with a piece of J cloth as a wick into the base of our current Vespa traps instead of the liquid lure. This will prevent by-catch when smaller insects get trapped inside.
From mid July when starting to track hornets nests, we saw all sorts of homemade lures often with J cloths weighed down in Chinese takeaway trays with small stones. Hornets can be dabbed with Tippex as they graze. It takes time to get their fill from the J cloth so attractant can be poured into a plastic bottle cap to encourage faster turn around.
We saw nest dissection. There are six or so disc layers gummed together with the silky substance used to protect the larvae that are only on the underside pointing downwards. It was reported that if a nest had 3500 inhabitants that some 2900 swarm out when the nest is disturbed so this is certainly not a venue for bystanders.
Queen hornets are shiny due to constant stroking by workers which removes their body hair.
An urban myth that kill traps set up in apiaries will discourage hornets was soundly debunked.
The meeting had been shocked into action by recent nest discoveries in Cheshire, Wrexham and over in Ireland seeming to bypass the onward march from the Channel. It is clear that these northern instances have been introduced by hornets hitching a ride in the distribution system.
Dover being closest to France was having a bad time but strangely Thanet near door to the north had only discovered three nests, no hornets or poor observation?
There was a caution to blackberry pickers that some nests are at low level.
All sorts of outdoorsy folk should be alerted to spot and report hornets, from scouts to tree planters, woodland groups, bat spotters, tree surgeons, young farmers, parish councils, agricultural shows and WIs. A massive education program is envisaged but we need to gauge when to engage the public to avoid initial burn out and less activity when the threat is actually real.
The BBKA members hub has pages about the hornet which you can access using your membership details.
There was some discussion about where the public is best reporting sightings and trappings etc. CEH is still the main point, ER2 is limited to BBKA members to discover local coordinators and there is a public app called Catch so these issues need to be sorted in the IOMs unique jurisdiction.
