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The Asian Hornet Threat WILDLIFE and EXOTICS | INSECTS ONLINE EDITION The Asian hornet threat The Asian hornet, Vespa velutina, would not have caused any comment in Europe until a chance event in 2004, when an over-wintering queen arrived in south-west France in a consignment of garden porcelain from China. Two questions are commonly There have been several over winter in a sheltered asked. First, what is the other instances where place protected from difference between a bee and hornets and yellowjackets the elements. Rising air John Hill a wasp or hornet? By and have been introduced temperatures in spring cause large, bees are vegetarian accidentally into parts of the queen to awaken, usually MVB MRCVS and wasps and hornets are the world – yellowjackets in mid-April. It is difficult – if carnivores. Bees collect nectar to southern Australia, for not impossible – for her to John qualified from Trinity for carbohydrates and pollen example – usually through the re-enter hibernation, so if she College, Dublin, in 1975, and for protein; wasps and hornets inadvertent introduction of wakes up too soon she will recently retired as senior eat other insects, although an overwintering queen rather die of starvation. She starts partner in a six-vet, mixed they will find nectar or steal than the specific movement of a to feed on any nectar or tree practice in County Antrim, honey for fuel. nest, which would be deliberate. resin available as her fat Northern Ireland. He is reserves are low or exhausted. currently a trustee of the Pet Second, what is the difference Vespa velutina has very This helps to activate Blood Bank and is the founder between a wasp and a hornet? distinctive yellow legs – the her ovaries. president of the recently The general public refer to a only species in Europe to have formed British Bee Veterinary non-hairy, slim stinging insect legs this colour. There are It is believed – but not Association set up to raise as a wasp (whereas a bee is 12 sub-species and the one yet proven – that queens knowledge of bees within the more rounded and hairy); that has invaded France has undertake a post- profession. He also sits on the hornets tend to be bigger – a black thorax and is known hibernation migration Bee Health Advisory Forum, at least two centimetres in as V. velutina nigrothorax. and are capable of flying which advises ministers and length. There are some precise It has been mistaken for the considerable distances. politicians on bee policy, anatomical differences too European hornet, Vespa This is a feature of many and is an enthusiastic – the distance between the crabro, the wood wasp, hornet species and would go beekeeper himself. ocelli and the back of the head Uricerus gigas and the belted some way to explaining the is greater in hornets and the hoverfly, Volucella zonaria. rapid expansion of territory relationship between the ocelli in France and surrounding and the compound eyes. Life cycle countries. Accidental A queen, mated in the movement by human means Wasps and hornets belong previous season, hibernates is also a probable factor. to the family Vespinae and have 19 species in the cavity Figure 1. Asian hornet larvae in comb cells. nest group (Vespula) and 14 species in the open-air nests (Dolichovespula). In the UK and most of Europe, there is only one species of hornet, Vespa crabro, and eight species of wasp or ‘yellowjacket’. V. crabro is often mistaken for the Asian hornet but is much bigger in 0.5 ™ size. There has also been a hours* misidentification in the media about the Asian hornet, Vespa velutina. The newspapers ™ published lurid articles about the Asian hornet but showed *Suggested Personal & Professional pictures of the giant Asian ™ Development (PPD) hornet, Vespa mandarinia. The latter is a much more aggressive species than V. velutina but, ™ thankfully, still confined to Japan – where 20 individual INSECTS hornets can decimate a ™ honeybee colony in 30 minutes. 64 VETERINARY PRACTICE TODAY | VOLUME SIX | ISSUE FIVE | 2018 WWW.VETCOMMUNITY.COM | ONLINE EDITION ™ ™ ONLINE EDITION INSECTS | WILDLIFE and EXOTICS Figure 2. Hornets enlarging their nest. Figure 3. Asian hornets ‘hawking’ a bee hive. The embryo nest At night the queen sleeps ‘queen usurpation’ and can in size (Figure 2). Each layer is During the next few weeks, on top of the nest and her result in several dead queens a series of concentric circles, the queen seeks out a nesting body heat assists the larval being found below an embryo each larger than the previous site – a wall cavity, garden and pupal development. It nest – even ‘victorious’ queens one; and every cell can be used shed or tree hollow. The nest takes her about 50 days to may be injured in these fights, up to three times to produce is secured by a petiole to the build the first 40-50 cells in so nests may fail or be smaller generations of workers. surface and is the single point which she will rear the first than usual. Queen usurpation of contact. The entrance is 10-15 brood into adult female appears to be an important As the colony grows, the located at the bottom and workers. The time it takes for control mechanism for hornet inside temperature stabilises the lower end has an initial each egg to develop into an and wasp populations. at a steady 30°C and brood comb of hexagonal cells and adult decreases as the colony development speeds up worker is surrounded by a single increases, owing to more heat. There is a brief period when development time – reducing layer of ‘paper’ resembling workers and queen work from about 50 days to 30 days. an envelope, only four to five The queen has to spend time outside the nest, but after centimetres across. away from the nest, so it is about two weeks the queen ‘Hawking’ vulnerable to attack from stays in the safety of the nest. Foraging hornets seek out The material is gathered predators, such as ants. She Her main task is egg laying; honeybees, in particular, by scraping wood with her applies a chemical repellent to whereas the foraging, brood although they will also predate mandibles from sources such the petiole; which is produced rearing and defence is carried on bumblebees, solitary as fences and telegraph poles, from a special set of glands out by the increasing numbers bees, small wasps, moths which is chewed and mixed (Van der Vetch glands) found of workers – whose body size and hoverflies. They hover (or with saliva in her mandibles inside her abdomen and is initially small but increases ‘hawk’) outside and around the to make paper. Different spread by an area of small as the colony enlarges. The entrance to a bee hive (Figure colours of paper indicate hairs forming a brush on the queen becomes the centre 3) and will pluck a honeybee different woods as the queen underside of her abdomen. of attention as the workers’ out of the air, fly to a twig and builds a new brood cell each The repellent has to be behaviour changes to serve her pull off its head, abdomen, day. Once the first few cells applied freshly each day. – licking her so she becomes wings and legs and fly the thorax are finished, she lays an egg hairless and shiny – and containing the flight muscles in each which is glued to the Usurpation aggressive workers guard the back to the nest to feed larvae. cell wall. The egg hatches Ants may be a nuisance to a entrance to the nest. after three to four days and nest but the main threat is The adult hornets are unable the larva clings to the old egg from other hornets. If a nest As the nest expands, a series to eat the bee thorax because casing to stop itself falling is destroyed accidentally, the of horizontal combs are ‘shucks’ of flesh are too big to out of the cell (Figure 1). It queen does not attempt to built and held to pre-existing pass the petiole between their goes through four moults, rebuild. Instead she will search combs by pillars. The petiole thorax and abdomen. Larvae, spins a silk cocoon, before for another nest and attempt is strengthened to take the however, do not have this moulting a fifth and final time to take it over by killing the weight and the pillars are restriction and so they eat and into a pupa. other queen. This is known as strengthened by embedding digest the meat voraciously. old cocoons into the paper, Adult requirement for protein making it as tough as concrete. is not high; but if they need Paper is taken from the inside it, they stimulate the larvae “It now seems likely, however, that it could wall of the envelope to make to regurgitate digested food appear anywhere in Britain owing to the new cells and new paper is for them. Their carbohydrate added to the outside wall, requirements are met by mass movements of goods and vehicles” such that the nest increases nectar, honeydew and tree WWW.VETCOMMUNITY.COM | ONLINE EDITION @VPTODAY | WWW.VETERINARYPRACTICETODAY.COM 65 WILDLIFE and EXOTICS | INSECTS ONLINE EDITION to 14 days, never to return; and The Tetbury nest was a little is known of their mating surprise because the first Key behaviour. The newly mated sightings of the Asian hornet queens seek out somewhere had been expected to be First nest to hibernate until spring; and somewhere along the English the vast majority – around 99 south coast, where there is a colonised departments per cent in some estimates – system of sentinel hives in key in 2017 die during winter.
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