The images shown above are not from the Channel Islands, not from Kent but from right here in Dorset. They show the Yellow Legged Hornet near a bait trap in the Osmington area.
I was fortunate enough to spend the afternoon with DEFRA inspecting traps and this is just some of what we saw. This is a worrying situation. These are either workers out looking for food or fertilised queens looking for somewhere to spend the winter.
If the nest is found and destroyed in the next few days we may be OK. If the nest is not found then we could have a serious problem. The gynes - future queens - in the nest will all go there separate ways to find somewhere to hibernate. Each of the hibernating queens could emerge in the spring and create a new nest then a new colony. A single nest could produce 350 gynes. Of those not all will be successfully fertilised and not all will survive the winter but one survival is too many.
As we did the inspection I was reminded that this is the same area that the Black Death arrived in the UK. Hopefully the Yellow Legged Hornet will not affect the bee population as Black Death affected humans.
It is up to us to keep on top of this problem. We must all be on the lookout for Yellow Legged Hornets from now until the weather gets cold and then again in the Spring as soon as it starts to warm up.
At the moment the situation is being handled by DEFRA and they do not require any further help. There is a risk that were more of us were to put out bait stations then the Yellow Legged Hornet would have so many choices it might not return to the one that DEFRA are using for "Track and Trace". They do not need any more eyes on the ground - we know it is there. If they do require any assistance then they will let me know and I will be in touch.