UKC

Take care out there. Some friends of mine inadvertently disturbed a hornet's nest whilst walking in the Sussex/Kent Weald yesterday. 4 were stung, including one woman on her first walk with them, who was stung 4 times.

Wasps and hornets seem to get particularly aggressive at this time of the year.

In reply to Trangia:

..........and for beekeepers, the Asian hornet has officially arrived. Somerset. No particular danger to humans as they nest high up in trees, but they are able to take out whole hives of bees over time.

In reply to Phil1919:


Are there any reports of native hornets doing this to honeybees?

In reply to Phil1919:

Bloody Hornet's coming over here taking over our hivves , Wait till Beexit !

In reply to llechwedd:

No I don't think so. Native hornets have been living alongside honey bees for a long time. The Asian hornets are complete newcomers and will affect the ecosystem adversely like many other alien species.

In reply to Phil1919:

Is this just evolution in action?

In reply to Bobling:

Perhaps, but speeded up by man just as we are warming the world unnaturally quickly. The bees will need some help in evolving quickly enough to deal with the threat.

In reply to Phil1919:

If a hornet invades a nest, the bees surround it and vibrate their bodies and increase the temperature of the hornet. It can't take the heat and dies.

The Asian hornets can take the heat so the bees have no defence.

In reply to L.A.:

Brilliant!!

In reply to DancingOnRock:



I'm sure I saw a documentary about Japanese bees doing something similar. Maybe they got hotter or something.

In reply to Trangia:

I've heard that this is due to them eating fermenting fruit which makes them particularly aggressive.... how true this is I have no idea but interesting thought non-the less

In reply to DancingOnRock:



But only Japanese honeybees have evolved that strategy. Our honeybees are thick as planks and just get massacred.

In reply to Phil1919:


What do you mean by 'unnaturally'...?

In reply to Bobling:


no...

In reply to Andy Morley:


A spore blown over an ocean is natural, a spore falling off the hull of a boat is not.

In reply to Roadrunner5:


Surely our evolution as a species is part of a natural process?

In reply to timjones:


Except that we know the consequences of our actions.

your statement gives carte blanche for the extinction of everything and any habitat.

In reply to Roadrunner5:

What about a spore on a piece of drifting flotsam? Or on a coconut?

In reply to around:

That's natural.

In reply to krikoman:


That's a fairly major extrapolation from the question that I asked.

Where did I say that we shouldn't respond to the consequences of our actions?

I merely asked a question to encourage people to consider whether it is correct to classify elements of the evolution of our own species as in some way unnatural. That evolution also includes the ability to respond to the consequences of our actions.

In reply to around:

Surely flotsam includes the wreckage of ships?

How can the wreckage of a ship be natural if the ship itself isn't?

In reply to timjones:
Because wreckage like trees move by currents, powered boats don't. However in NZ biosecurity we would consider anything non native as invasive regardless of the vector

In reply to SenzuBean:


No. They do. It's temperature related.

https://beeinformed.org/2011/10/21/hornet-predators/

In reply to DancingOnRock:


European honey bees often do the same thing to kill an old queen, if they are replacing her.

In reply to DancingOnRock:



It's actually not temperature alone - it's temperature and CO2. Also, still no proof about European honeybees performing it. e.g.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honey_bee
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8129536.stm
youtube.com/watch?v=2P7Q1ncgcoY&

All say that European honeybees are useless, and japanese honeybees are legit.

In reply to Trangia:

Unbelievable - for the first time in 3 years, we found an extremely large hornet in the house just now. I managed to catch it, and accidentally gave it some food (I tried to entice it into a container with some agave syrup, and when it went in the container and I closed the lid it decided to lick it up). Determined it was a European hornet, and he looked pretty harmless (he looked knackered actually, a bit of food did him good) so let him go outside.

In Germany, apparently you can get fined up to 50,000 euros for destroying a hornet nest.

In reply to Roadrunner5:


What makes the human race 'unnatural' to you? What about a spore falling of the shell of a turtle?

In reply to Roadrunner5:


Tree trunk?

In reply to jim jones:

Tree trunks are again naturally moved by currents. Saying that I think we'd still react if say an asian clam was on it.

That happens Andy. I'm just saying what our policy was at Biosecurity NZ.