Stop the Asian Hornet – How You Can Help Protect UK Bees

In this video, I'm going to give you every single piece of information that I have about that Asian hornet. Now, I think it's quite clear from all of the sightings that the Asian hornet has well and truly established itself at the moment in Kent. Not to say that we can't work towards limiting that expansion and hopefully eliminating it completely, but it's quite clear that there are a lot of Asian hornet nests in Kent and the south of England at the moment. It also seems to appear that they are spreading throughout the country, and if you look to continental Europe, it's quite clear that once it gets hold in a country, the spread spread of the Asian hornet can be very, very quick. So although Kent is the main area of focus at the moment, all of the ports across the south coast, and I guess the whole of the south of England, could potentially be an Asian hornet hotspot kind of at the end of this year but definitely into next year. But in particular, Kent does seem to have the biggest problem this year. There's been more nests identified in Kent this year than there have in the entire UK since 2016, just in August in Kent this year. A really big problem, something that we need to get a handle on. So the Asian hornet was first seen in France in 2004, and it spread around 80 kilometers per year pretty much every year since then. And now, you know, France absolutely battered by Asian hornets. If you look at Richard Knowles' videos, you will see major, major problem with the Asian hornet in France. We cannot be dealing with that in the UK, so we need to do everything we possibly can to try and limit this expansion of the Asian hornet. So the Asian Hornet now fully established in Belgium, Portugal, Spain, and probably a few other European countries as well. So has it got this bad in the UK? And I think a lot of people are baffled about this. Are they flying over from continental Europe? Are they hitching a ride somewhere? Are there nests that have been missed? No one really knows, and it could be any one of those or a combination of all 3. All we know is that they are coming over here one way or another, And Kent seems to be their county of choice for the time being. Now, the Asian hornet isn't only a problem for honeybees, it is a major problem for all pollinator species within the UK. They will prey on absolutely everything. They are an apex predator, and there is nothing that predates on them within the UK, and that is why they're able to spread so fast across different countries. So what can you do to stop the spread of Asian hornets within the UK? First thing you need to do is you as a beekeeper need to be vigilant. But it's not just about beekeepers being vigilant, it's about spreading that word and trying to educate as many people as possible. Your children, your nieces, your uncles, your aunts, your neighbors, everybody you know. And give them these 3 questions in order for them to be able to identify the Asian hornet. Is it mostly black? Does it have an orange band at the bottom of its abdomen? And does it have yellow legs? If the answer to all those 3 questions is yes, it's highly likely that it's an Asian hornet. Spread the word, educate people, get them to be able to identify what a hornet is. Tell them how to download the Asian Hornet Watch app. Show them how to use it. Show them the differences between a European hornet, a wasp, an Asian hornet, a honeybee. Education is key here because what we need is everybody to be able to identify an Asian hornet, but more importantly than that, to be able to alert the NBU to where these hornets are. So once people are able to actually identify an Asian hornet, what you can do is you can set up a variety of different traps within your apiaries and within your gardens. And as I said, this isn't just beekeepers that should be doing this in their apiaries. Every single beekeeper, you need to have a trap in your apiary. But every single person, especially in the south coast of England, especially in Kent, you should have a trap in your garden and you should bait it up specifically for Asian hornets. You will get a little bit of bycatch in there, and I'll talk about bycatch at the end of this video. But if you can identify an Asian hornet and you can put up a trap in order to trap it, then you can get a positive ID on it and you can alert the NBU to where these hornets are moving. This means it gives them an ID on a certain area, and then what you can do is you can track and you can trace these hornets by looking at where they're going back to and then the time it takes for them to come and return to a So Asian hornets, once they find a food source, they will be back every single time. Similar to bees, really. They find something good, they go and tell their mates, and their mates come back and they get more food. You can tell how far a nest is away from that food source, or where you've identified that Asian hornet, by the direction in which they travel and the time taken to get between the food source and their nest. So in terms of health and safety here, obviously don't go trying to swat Asian hornets. If you trap an Asian hornet, you cannot release it though. So if you do find one in a trap, immediately close up that trap with either tape or foil or cling film. Do not release any Asian hornets. If you see them just flying around, they're not particularly aggressive. The same way that you might get with like a wasp, if you start flapping at it, it might sting you. But if you come across an Asian hornet's nest, do not go anywhere near it. Get a picture of it if you can from a very, very safe distance. But Asian hornets are incredibly defensive when it comes to their nests, and you will get not one but multiple Asian hornets following you, and it can cause serious issues if you do that. If you get stung by a lot of Asian hornets, you can die. If you see a nest, get back to a safe distance. Don't go anywhere near it whatsoever. So the Asian hornet is pretty much the perfect predator, and it has no natural enemies within the United Kingdom. I think there might be like a European honey hawk or a buzzard that takes it down. We definitely don't have any of those in the UK, so it is going to be able to spread incredibly quickly with nothing that's going to eat it. And as I said before, it doesn't just take honeybees, it will take wasps, caterpillars, spiders, pretty much any insect, anything you can get its hands on. Now if you want regular updates in terms of what's going on with the Asian hornet situation, obviously subscribe to Black Mountain Honey. I'm going to do my very best to give you all of the information as I receive it, but you can also sign up to asianhornetalert.org.uk and then you'll get all of the up-to-date information on the Asian hornet. They are also looking for volunteers, so if you've got time on your hands and you're willing to volunteer, get in contact with asianhornetalert.org.uk. And that's a specific shout out for people in the south of England and the Kent area. So the next thing I want to talk about in this video is the different types of traps, how you should set up those traps, how you should set them up in your garden, the different baits you should use, how you should monitor them, and the potential bycatch that you're going to get. First thing I will say is do not worry about spending lots of money on expensive Asian hornet traps. The cheapest traps are gonna be just as good as the most expensive ones. And all you're looking to do here is catch 1 or 2 Asian hornets. You're not looking to control a situation where you've got thousands of hornets going around. You just wanna be able to catch one, get the ID on it, upload it into the app, and alert the NBU as to where these hornets are. So the simplest trap that everyone can make with what they've got at home is the lemonade bottle trap. You wanna take a lemonade bottle, cut the top third off, invert the top third, pop it back inside the base, staple around the edges so it's completely sealed, hole punch a couple of holes into it so you can hang it up or you can have it freestanding on the table. If you're going to have it freestanding, I suggest put a couple of stones in the bottom just to keep it weighted down. And then if you want to pop some 4 to 6 millimeter holes elsewhere into that bottle to enable other insects to escape, you can do that as well. It reduces the chance of a bumper bycatch, but if you've got Asian hornets in your area, Really, the bycatch is kind of like collateral damage at the moment. It's not a major issue because you need to trap these Asian hornets and find out where they are, because the damage that the Asian hornet will ultimately do to all of that bycatch is going to be so much worse than the collateral damage in that trap. So I know it seems a little bit harsh if you're catching all different types of moths and spiders and wasps in there, but you really need to do this for the greater good of the UK's pollinator population. So I'm gonna go through a few different traps and I'll give you the bait and the recipes at the very end, and they apply to pretty much all of the traps that we're gonna talk about. The advantage of this style of trap is that pretty much everyone can make it, it's really cheap, and then the disadvantage is that you might get a significant amount of bycatch. Now this is the Asian Hornet Alert trap, which is a Slush Puppy container, and then they've just got a PVC pipe that they've cut off a couple of inches and stuck that into the top. Now all you're doing with this trap here is you're just putting the lid on like that, and that is the trap complete with bait inside. As I said, I'll go through the bait in a little while, Really, really simple, cheap to make this one. Probably cost like 10 or 20p. And again, if you want to pop a couple of holes in so you can hang it up, or even easier for me, you just pop a stone or a couple of golf balls in, weight it down like that, and go and place that into your apiary or into your garden. So the advantages of a trap like this are they're cheap, really quick to make, only need to be checked once a day, and you can also use this as a wick trap, which I'll cover later on in this video as well. As well. Now anecdotally, I've heard if you paint— spray paint the top of that black, it makes it really attractive for Asian hornets as well. What you're best off doing is trying a variety of different traps and different baits and seeing if any of them work. The majority of them will work, but it's best just to try a few different variations. Now in terms of wick traps, you can use this exact same trap here, and instead of cutting the circular top out, leave it with the cross that's on it, and you'll just want to use some blue jay cloth. And you just pull the top of that blue jay cloth out, and then you're going to apply some sort of attractant to it. Now, the benefit of doing that is you're going to get no bycatch whatsoever, but the disadvantage is you do need to sit there and monitor it to see if anything's coming in, and then you can't trap the hornet if you do get an Asian hornet on it. The recommended attractant for Asian hornets on wick trap is using a product called Trap-It. It's not widely available, it's very, very effective, and it's also quite expensive as well. So again, just experiment with different products. Anything sweet is going to work in a wick trap like that, but it does require you're going to constantly have to go back and check it and constantly go back and rebait it every time. Now in terms of placements for all of these traps, if you're finding somewhere that's particularly waspy, or you've got like rotten fruit on the ground near a tree, or rotten fruit anywhere in your garden, that's going to be a really good place to put them. Something that's going to be naturally attractive to both wasps and hornets, either hung up in a tree or placed down on the ground or on a table. If you've got wasps and Asian hornets in the area, they're going to find these traps pretty much wherever you put them. The final trap I'm going to talk about is just an open trap. Not my favorite trap because it is a little bit like open feeding as well, but it's just a Chinese takeaway container, few pebbles inside it, and then everything's going to come and feast on that bait that you're going to put inside it. Disadvantages again is that it needs to be regularly filled up, it can be washed out by rain, and then you do need to actually stand there and watch it as opposed to trapping anything inside. side. If you had to ask me, do I have a favorite trap? I'd probably go with the lemonade bottle one just because it's by far and away the easiest one to make, and pretty much everyone's going to have access to a lemonade bottle. And if they don't, they're really cheap to go and buy. So in terms of the bait that you're going to put into this trap, I recommend making up a big bulk solution of bait and then individually applying it to each of the separate traps that you've made. The Jersey recipe is 1 kilogram of sugar, 2 liters of boiling water, 50 grams of bramble or blackberry jam, and then 5 grams of non-active brewer's yeast. That mixture there has proven very, very successful in terms of attracting Asian hornets, and you will get quite a lot of bycatch with that as well. You can imagine wasps are going to go for that, bees are probably going to go for that as well. And then as I said, you can tinker with that recipe if you want. So if you've got lots of windfall fruit in the garden that's starting to rot and you can see lots of wasps on it, then you can chuck a little bit of that in as well. You can try various different baits and variations on that recipe, but that recipe there is proven to work really well. Kilogram of sugar, 2 liters of water, 50 grams of jam, 5 grams of non-active brewer's yeast. So if you make some of these traps and you put the bait in there and you put them out in the garden and you come back the next day and you think you found an Asian hornet, ask yourself those 3 questions. Is it black? Does it have an orange-banded segment? Does it have yellow legs? The answer to all of those 3 questions is yes. Download the Asian Hornet Watch app, take a picture of it from a safe distance, Do not release it. Seal up the bait trap so it definitely cannot get out. Enter it onto the Asian Hornet Watch app. It'll ask you a few questions in terms of location, number of insects, whether you think it's an Asian hornet or European hornet. It's really, really simple to go through the Asian Hornet Watch app and put that information in. What that will do is that will alert the MBU, and then you'll be contacted by someone in the MBU to come and have a look and identify it. And then once they've confirmed that it is a sighting, the MBU and Defra will take it from there, and hopefully they'll be able to eliminate the nest that's in that location. I will be doing lots of videos on the Asian hornets in the upcoming weeks and months. I want to do everything I possibly can to help the fight against the Asian hornet. You need to do your bit too, which is setting up these traps, setting them up with bait, educating people as to what the Asian hornet looks like, and trying to get them to put the traps in their gardens as well. The more traps we have, the more catches we'll get, The better data we have, more ammunition the NBU and DEFRA have in order to fight the invasion of the Asian hornet.