Webinar from invasives.ie – 11 February 2026
Invasives.ie, part of Ireland’s National Diversity Data Centre, held an on line webinar on Wednesday 11th February 2026 entitled ‘Combatting the Threat of Asian Hornets Across These Islands’ meaning the British Isles as a whole. They have an excellent web site designed to engage the public in the hunt for Demon Shrimps, Oak Prosessionary Moth and Pond Sliders as well as Asian Hornets.
Chaired by Dr Niall Moore, there were four speakers and two question sessions. I hope to be able to get a transcript of the answers in due course.
Dr Pete Kennedy, University of Exeter
Although his lecture title included ’20 years of missed opportunities’ he did not have time to address what everyone wanted to know.
AH makes much larger nests than EU hornets
First hit SW France in 2005 and England in 2016. Global trade continues to encourage the spread, into USA via Savannah GA in 2023 and more recently Auckland NZ in 2025. Spread speed in France was estimated at 78km/yr, it seems slower in Italy and Portugal now being invaded.
It is a voracious predator not just of honey bees leading to hive losses and weakened agricultural pollination. He proved there was foraging paralysis in bee hives when hornets were about.
Discussed radio tracking with Robor Nature which is now getting more sophisticated and AI identification both for spotters photographs and setting up a webcam at the bait station and then monitoring over all daylight hours. It seems there were 30,000 English sightings reported, only 0.05% were AH. Similarly the Irish chap later showed the locations of everyone in Ireland who photographed a hornet; it covered the whole country but only two hornets were ever spotted!
Chris Issaac, Jersey
Jersey sets 600 spring time traps!
Hibernating queens prefer moist places like loose bark on dead trees but less than 10% of them survive.
15% of secondary nests are in bushes where folk get stung
Aug/Sept is the key time to destroy before queens emerge but must continue through October and November as they emerge.
Queens and drones have to mate on the ground as they cannot fly coupled together.
Nigel Semmence, NBU, Animal and Plant Health Agency, UK
163 nests were destroyed in England in 2025. 24 in 2024 and 72 in 2023, before that it was in single figures.
There are 15-20 nests per km2 in France, although Kent looks bad the density is nowhere near that figure.
Nest trackers will need a government licence to allow the release of invasive species.
Radio tracking is very useful in the last 300m towards the nest otherwise trad marking and timing (one minute per 100m) are employed.
Southampton University are working on an acoustic signature to track hornets.
John Kelly – National Biodiversity Data Centre, Ireland
John discussed Ireland’s recent response
A single individual was found in Dublin in 2021 but no nest
The next was in Cork City in August 2025. The nest was sought in a 250m radius. The destruction was filmed by national media and as a result 1300 reports were received on which 36 were hornets. A further singleton was found in Dublin and a further nest at Cobh a few miles away. Both nests were destroyed
A high vantage point is useful for tracking.
Hornets can hitch a ride in any cargo as well as TT motor bikes and mobile homes.
Guernsey produced some beer mats in 2021 showing a full size picture.
By Roger Putman
