Asian hornet traps and baits - please review what you've used

[Karol]

I am about to be a joint sole supplier of a specific selective trap for the asian hornet to be sold in the UK. It will not be sold to make much on the cost price as I believe it needs to be used far and wide. It'll retail around £28-£30.

It is fully selective and can be used to capture the AH Queens in the Spring and allows bycatch to escape, and then it transforms into a AH worker trapin the summer using a different bait.

They are very very effective.

More on this shortly

If they were very very effective why is there a continuing need for them in velutina infested areas?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

What happens to the old queen? Does she die off or go into hibernation? I'm presuming hibernation,

I would say she dies - as with other vespines

 

[fian]

Oh dear I have a problem then.
My garden hive is right next to /adjacent to a camelia and have nowhere else I can place either , looks like the camelia will get the chop then.

relocate the hive and set the trap on the camellia?

 

[Karol]

?? Spring trapping is ideal as it stops nests being built in the first place. In spring queens are out foraging while they build their primary nests, perfect time to catch them. Availability of prey is not the issue.

It's not ideal because of the collateral harm done to native species. The vast majority of the queens caught in Spring would have perished before successfully starting a colony anyway so there's a lot of harm done for very little actual gain.

Availability of prey is absolutely the issue. If you destroy native vespines you will increase prey availability for velutina when they need it most. Not during colony founding, but during nest maturation later in the season when the developing sexual brood needs masses of prey protein to mature.

Removal of queens, at any point in the cycle is a good move - but they are only out of the nests in the spring, during the flight between primary and secondary nests and when new queens are produced in the autumn. Trapping during the summer will catch only workers, drones too late season, which might temporarily reduce predation on the hives but that's all.

Some conflicting views on queen catching in the autumn, do they forage to fatten up for hibernation (and be available for trapping) or do they go straight to hibernation.

The building of bigger nests is more likely weather related - when it's warm enough for nest building in the spring and when they slow down in the autumn as it cools off.

Nest building is weather driven. Warm wet summers deliver the largest nests because warm wet weather supports floral growth which in turn supports confluence of grazing insects which in turn provides an abundance of insect prey for the development of sexuals. It is precisely for this reason why native vespines need to be protected so as to out compete velutina for insect prey. Native vespines are far more agile than Velutina and it is a big mistake to do anything to compromise native species. I will go as far as to say that if spring trapping is pursued in the UK then it will open the door to velutina and those that spring trap will reap what they sow.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Native vespines are far more agile than Velutina and it is a big mistake to do anything to compromise native species.

Same as any other year - we'll still have the same misguided few killing queen wasps and any other wasp with gay abandon come the spring

 

[ericbeaumont]

Availability of prey is not the issue

If 4 queens emerge in Spring to forage for insects and build primary nests, but 3 are trapped, the remaining queen would be able to profit from the extra forage available and develop a bigger nest faster.

If this is so, Spring trapping cannot do anything other than increase the likelihood of a vast nest by late summer, ready to produce a significantly greater number of new queens, than had the original 4 queens been left to develop smaller less successful nests.

This scenario was outlined a while ago by Karol, and the gist of it explained why Spring trapping in Europe did not lead to reduced predation on pollinators.

Is there a flaw in this principle of not trapping in Spring?

 

[Erichalfbee]

the remaining queen would be able to profit from the extra forage available and develop a bigger nest faster.

That presumes forage is limited
Is it?

 

[Karol]

If 4 queens emerge in Spring to forage for insects and build primary nests, but 3 are trapped, the remaining queen would be able to profit from the extra forage available and develop a bigger nest faster.

If this is so, Spring trapping cannot do anything other than increase the likelihood of a vast nest by late summer, ready to produce a significantly greater number of new queens, than had the original 4 queens been left to develop smaller less successful nests.

This scenario was outlined a while ago by Karol, and the gist of it explained why Spring trapping in Europe did not lead to reduced predation on pollinators.

Is there a flaw in this principle of not trapping in Spring?

Spring traping in Europe has failed to eradicate velutina. The reason lies in understanding population dynamics.

A velutina nest will produce circa 1500 queens. Only one queen has to survive for the population to be sustained. So whilst spring traps may kill hundreds of queens, those queens will inevitably be those of the 1499 queens that would in any event fail and not go on to form successful colonies. It's incredibly difficult to catch and kill every queen via trapping which is what is required and trying to do so causes unjustifiable collateral harm to native vespines.

The one surviving queen will then go on to form her nest in the absence of competition for insect prey and will start producing workers. The traps will kill some of the workers but not enough to prevent sexuals being produced and so the cycle repeats. This is precisely what is going on in Europe. Madness.

Fipronil custard on the other hand destroys these survivor queens which are otherwise nest bound and not interested in the traps.

 

[ericbeaumont]

That presumes forage is limited
Is it?

A variable feast: I'd imagine that Spring insect populations depends on Winter weather, and that applies to hibernating Vv as much as it's forage.

What I have learned so far is that obvious solutions are not what they seem.

 

[Erichalfbee]

So far

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

maybe the answer is to drop a thermo nuclear bomb on Kent - it's such a remote area it wouldn't be much of a loss anyway

 

[Somerford]

If they were very very effective why is there a continuing need for them in velutina infested areas?

pretty obvious Karol if you think about it - just the same reason as varroa still infects my bees - other beekeepers don't treat. If local beekeepers (and there are many) don't trap as well then founder queens find their way into the depleted pockets, much like wasps do too.
However this will need much more than just beekeepers - everyone with a garden will need to be working together on this - pretty much forever or until we can find some nematode to knock them out

 

[OldFarm]

Spring traping in Europe has failed to eradicate velutina. The reason lies in understanding population dynamics.

A velutina nest will produce circa 1500 queens. Only one queen has to survive for the population to be sustained. So whilst spring traps may kill hundreds of queens, those queens will inevitably be those of the 1499 queens that would in any event fail and not go on to form successful colonies. It's incredibly difficult to catch and kill every queen via trapping which is what is required and trying to do so causes unjustifiable collateral harm to native vespines.

The one surviving queen will then go on to form her nest in the absence of competition for insect prey and will start producing workers. The traps will kill some of the workers but not enough to prevent sexuals being produced and so the cycle repeats. This is precisely what is going on in Europe. Madness.

Fipronil custard on the other hand destroys these survivor queens which are otherwise nest bound and not interested in the traps

It's not ideal because of the collateral harm done to native species. The vast majority of the queens caught in Spring would have perished before successfully starting a colony anyway so there's a lot of harm done for very little actual gain.

Availability of prey is absolutely the issue. If you destroy native vespines you will increase prey availability for velutina when they need it most. Not during colony founding, but during nest maturation later in the season when the developing sexual brood needs masses of prey protein to mature.

Nest building is weather driven. Warm wet summers deliver the largest nests because warm wet weather supports floral growth which in turn supports confluence of grazing insects which in turn provides an abundance of insect prey for the development of sexuals. It is precisely for this reason why native vespines need to be protected so as to out compete velutina for insect prey. Native vespines are far more agile than Velutina and it is a big mistake to do anything to compromise native species. I will go as far as to say that if spring trapping is pursued in the UK then it will open the door to velutina and those that spring trap will reap what they sow.

I said availability of prey is not be a limiting factor, because at this point because we aren't over run with Asian Hornets, if we were it would be an issue. If we heavily indiscriminately spring trap there would also be an availability of prey issue.

It feels like we are in the calm before the storm and we are sleep walking in to it. There is an enormous amount of education that needs to be done, not just bee keepers, but the general population too, and it needs to be done in such a way that people don't panic and start killing everything that's black and yellow and flies.

 

[Karol]

pretty obvious Karol if you think about it - just the same reason as varroa still infects my bees - other beekeepers don't treat. If local beekeepers (and there are many) don't trap as well then founder queens find their way into the depleted pockets, much like wasps do too.
However this will need much more than just beekeepers - everyone with a garden will need to be working together on this - pretty much forever or until we can find some nematode to knock them out

Which is a totally unrealistic and unattainable proposition which is why it shouldn't be entertained because it will help velutina become established. Good for trap sellers but bad for beekeepers.

I concur that trapping would require participation everywhere by everyone not just beekeepers for this strategy to suppress velutina which is unethical and nothing short of ecological vandalism.

One of the benefits of fipronil custard is that it doesn't require anything of the sort of intensity or cost that trapping requires. Why? Because velutina workers are forced to visit bee hives because bees are the only real concentrated source of insect prey at a time of nest maturation. This provides the means for beekeepers to remotely destroy nests in a very targetted and ecologically sensitive manner because action only needs to be taken when there is evidence of velutina and that action will prevent proliferation. Trapping is indiscriminate and anticipatory and used irrespective of whether there's a problem or not.

 

[Karol]

I said availability of prey is not be a limiting factor, because at this point because we aren't over run with Asian Hornets, if we were it would be an issue. If we heavily indiscriminately spring trap there would also be an availability of prey issue.

I think you've got the wrong end of the stick. Because we have healthy native vespines there isn't the availability of prey currently and velutina currently struggles to produce sexual progeny.

If we destroy native vespine species we will provide velutina with the prey it requires to propagate. That's why trapping is so counter productive in the fight against velutina. Trapping will only help velutina become established.

I have researched and found no independant evidence to support the claims of no by-catch of beneficial vespines.

It feels like we are in the calm before the storm and we are sleep walking in to it. There is an enormous amount of education that needs to be done, not just bee keepers, but the general population too, and it needs to be done in such a way that people don't panic and start killing everything that's black and yellow and flies.

And yet, spring trapping will do just that, destroy beneficial vespines.

 

[Gilberdyke John]

If I have followed this thoroughly, spring trapping is counter-productive as it enables survivors to take advantage of more available prey and so build bigger nests which will produce more queens at the end of summer, which is what ought to be avoided.

Trapping spring queens will reduce the number of potential nests and I'd hardly consider that counter productive. Even if it does result in bigger nests the destruction of one of those will mean less hornet population in the vicinity and reduced effort in locating and destroying. Taking NO action is not an option unless you're willing to stand by and watch the invasion.

 

[roche]

Strikes me that having fewer, larger nests is bad news. Think about bees - they require a decent size colony to do well. The colony size releases workers to forage. Smaller colonies tend not to prosper.

 

[Gilberdyke John]

I have researched and found no independant evidence to support the claims of no by-catch of beneficial vespines.

Maybe you need to keep looking?

 

[Christine Hamilton]

I'm based in Brittany and started trapping a couple of years ago. Last year I bought an AH trap and caught about 40 queens in the spring, so this year I bought another one and made 2 myself. I used a mix of 35% white wine, lager (apparently bees don't like beer ) and grenadine and hung them all about 2 metres up near a large Camellia bush. AH are attracted to them when they come out of hibernation because they are native to Japan and flower in early spring. This year they were a bit later in coming out due to excessive rain and a cold spring, however they soon showed themselves when it warmed up. I have attached a photo showing the merits of the different traps - I call it "Tale of the tape" used when boxers are compared to their opponent! Once I started to catch the odd Euro I took them down. Seems the AH come out of hibernation a few weeks earlier. I caught twice as many this year than last, but that could be because I had a nest in my roof which I didn't discover until october!

It looks like the drink bottles do much better than the proprietory traps. Do you just leave the top off or do they have an entrance lower down?

 

[Christine Hamilton]

Ive seen photos of the AH compared to EH and bees and wasps but ive not seen photos of queen AH compared to workers. What is the size and appearance differences. Does anyone know?