France vs the Asian hornet

[gavin]

Mike Brown spoke at the bee farmers meeting a few weeks ago on his experiences in a village in France where beekeepers (often elderly!) were volunteering to go up very long turntable ladders in the dark to inject sulphurous fumes into Asian hornet nests. Desperate measures!

Here is a clip showing some of the things they are doing elsewhere. The 150 Euro fee for the elimination of each nest charged by professional exterminators is a bit steep, but this guy is developing an idea where you fire insecticide-laced paintballs into their nests from the safety of the ground. Worth a look, even if you don't follow the language:

http://www.francetvinfo.fr/animaux/le-frelon-asiatique-fleau-de-l-apiculture_853541.html

[Jon]

Hornet paintball sniper. Would make a good movie.

[gavin]

Next product line for the new Thorne catalogue.

If the older male beekeeper in Scotland generally drifted towards the gadgetry of the oxalic vapourisation process, can you imagine the rush to do paintballing out on the streets to 'save the bee'?

[busybeephilip]

Looks like fun, I can see an inter club activity event emerging here

[Feckless Drone]

[QUOTE=gavin;29535]Next product line for the new Thorne catalogue.
Given the tendencies of beekeepers to tinker and improvise then I have this vision of correx siege towers appearing and then the catalogues will be filled with bows and arrows, trebuchets and balistas under the Pests and Diseases section. The beginners classes will now include an afternoon on a firing range and Liam Neeson gets invite to be honorary president of SBA.

[Jon]

We could get teams from Bayer and Monsanto just to spice things up a bit.
Bayer would likely cheat by putting nerve gas in the paint balls.
Orkney BKA would never stand a chance!

[busybeephilip]

Maybe we could develop an PC version of Hornetcraft and get funding for this (for those that dont understand this see http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/mar/25/minecraft-free-secondary-school-northern-island )

[greengumbo]

We could get teams from Bayer and Monsanto just to spice things up a bit.
Bayer would likely cheat by putting nerve gas in the paint balls.
Orkney BKA would never stand a chance!

Gavin would build his own "native" paintball device - firing laced porridge. Identifiable by measuring the morphometry of the gun handle.

[Jimbo]

I think we need to go a bit more high tech here
My idea would be to adapt one of these radio controlled drones with a camera and an insecticide gun mounted on it. Various attachments could then be developed eg a swarm catcher attachment for those inaccessible swarms we get called out for
Of course this would require funding. Can't decide whether to go for crowd funding or dragons den
Any suggestions for further development of the idea


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[greengumbo]

Actually for the asian hornet nests......that's not a bad idea Jim !

[greengumbo]

http://www.smartdrone.com/a-company-develops-a-drone-with-stinger-which-is-aiming-at-eradicating-hornet-by-injecting-toxic-powder.html

Sorry Jimbo.....i'm out.

[Adam]

Using drones to send in insecticide appeals to me...
Does anyone khow how far north the asian hornet has travelled in France. Is it at Calais yet waiting to hitch a ride on a juggernautt?

[gavin]

Peut-etre.

Certainly around l'Havre and Cherbourg. Wont be long now ....

http://amisdekervoyal.viabloga.com/images/Carte_2013_Vespa_velutina_Q_Rome_MNHN_t.800.jpg

[busybeephilip]

going by the dates on that map the south of england may well be light green now !

[Jon]

How far north are they likely to colonise?

[Pete L]

How far north are they likely to colonise?

With any luck, no further north than Bournemouth.

[Jon]

Wishful thinking.
We should start taking bets on whether Asian Hornet or Small Hive Beetle will get here first.

[gavin]

I asked Mike the climate question and he said that going by their natural range the UK would suit them (Asian hornets) just fine. He may not have spotted my Scottish accent though - *that* was wishful thinking!

[prakel]

Wishful thinking.

Yeah, that.

[gavin]

Was just watching Wild China there. There is another way of dealing with Asian hornets (well, they could be, look like them). Watch how these guys turn the tables on them .....

About 41 min 40 secs onwards.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00brvjx/wild-china-2-shangrila.

Ah, no longer available now. OK, these guys had what looked like Asian hornets taking nectar from banana flowers. Using a grsshopper on a stick as bait they lowered down a feeding hornet and slipped a thread loop with feather attached over its abdomen. Once the nest was traced, smoke was used to disperse adults so that they could tuck in to the snack of grubs.

[Bumble]

Excellent! First catch your grasshopper!

I've been reading some articles from Spain this (https://translate.google.co.uk/translate?hl=en&sl=es&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cidecot.net%2Fdistribucion-avispa-asiatica%2F) and this (https://translate.google.co.uk/translate?hl=en&sl=es&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fquieromiel.com%2Fenemigos-de-las-abejas%2Fexpansion-de-vespa-velutina-2015%2F). The articles suggest movement is mostly by lorries or boats.

Then I found this interactive map (https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=zQZZvCfJcXQo.k0cLRXyow4C0), which is too large to share on here. It shows large clusters of nests and sightings around Spanish ports of Corunna and Bilbao.

I liked the pictures on this page (http://agentur-focus.de/Lightboxen/ANGEBOTE/FEATURES/2013/Tiere/GoetgheluckHornisse/index.html), the comment beneath one of them hints that beer might not be the best bait because it attracts too many useful insects so maybe we should learn from the Chinese, and use grasshoppers as bait.

[greengumbo]

The photo at the bottom left in that last link from Bumble would seem to suggest the hornets would acclimatise to Scotland. Although it seems not to have predicted the spread into Spain particularly well. These invasive species are usually far more plastic in terms of plausible future distribution than is generally predicted my modelling unfortunately. They are lovely looking insects mind.

[gavin]

And tasty! (Apparently)

Perfectly agree that models and also hunches (the two are related anyway) on future distributions of invasive species are often wrong. The same applies to small hive beetle although now we do have a note of caution from the regulators as well as the statements from some importers that it will not be a problem here. I seem to recall some folk claiming that Varroa, native to steamy places in SW Asia, was unlikely to do well in Scotland as it appeared for the first time in SW England.