BBC The Killer Hornets
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00:00The UK is being invaded by an apex predator that fills British beekeepers with fear, the
00:11Asian Hornet.
00:12They find your hive and your hive is doomed really.
00:17Just one can kill up to 50 bees a day, which could cause havoc to our ecosystem.
00:24They could very quickly decimate our native bee populations.
00:28They've already made themselves at home across Europe and in the Channel Islands.
00:32The one up the road there, we've got another one in the valley there, that's three up there.
00:39And it's a race against time to stop them taking a foothold in the UK.
00:45But is it already too late?
00:48The horse is bolted and it's out of the field, it's past the next field and it's in the next
00:53village.
00:59The humble bee, a vital cog in every ecosystem.
01:05But the numbers are dwindling.
01:08There's climate change, loss of habitat, and now British insects are facing another threat.
01:16A new invasive species, the Asian Hornet.
01:22An average nest of hornets can consume over 11 kilos of insects in just one year.
01:28They'll hover around the entrance of a hive and as the honeybees try to leave to go to
01:36forage, they will swoop and catch them in mid-air.
01:39They're coming along here somewhere, it's got to be around here somewhere, Dan.
01:49So the National Bee Unit are on a mission.
01:51Oh there it is, yeah we can see it there, it's up in the tree there.
01:55Oh right at the top.
01:56Have you got it there?
01:57Can you see it in the binoculars?
01:58Yeah, there's a couple scurrying around.
02:00Yeah, it's a decent size that, right next to the pond.
02:04The pond on the other side, so we've got to be careful of that.
02:07They're tracking Asian Hornet nests in a bid to eradicate them from the UK.
02:14This nest has hundreds of hornets inside, which could quickly turn into thousands.
02:22It's a vital operation in the fight to stop the spread of the invaders.
02:25Another one done, move on to the next.
02:30As pollinators, bees need to be protected.
02:35Bees pollinate about 35, 37% of all of our food crops.
02:42There's also certain plants that are only pollinated by certain species of bees, so
02:45we might lose those altogether.
02:47Ecosystems are all super interconnected, that can have huge knock-on effects.
02:54There were a record number of sightings of Asian Hornets in the UK in 2023, and the National
03:03Bee Unit destroyed 72 nests in 56 locations, most of which were in Kent.
03:12Beekeepers like Tony know just how dangerous these hornets can be.
03:18If they find your hive, and it's at the point of time where they're looking for protein
03:23to feed their brood, it's a feast for them.
03:26So they come down to your hive, they'll hawk around the hive, and it might only be five
03:30or six of the hornets hawking.
03:32The bees then stop foraging, they stop coming out, and they starve.
03:37And then the wasps will come in and finish them off, and then the Asian Hornets will
03:40finish the wasps off.
03:43For British beekeepers, their biggest fear is the UK ending up like their neighbours
03:50across Europe.
03:54It's believed they first took a foothold in Europe when they were transported to France
03:59all the way back in 2004 in a pottery shipment from China.
04:05Asian Hornets are native to Southeast Asia, but the hornet is now established in France,
04:11Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, Portugal, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, and Jersey.
04:21When they first emerged in France, the authorities largely left beekeepers and individuals to
04:27handle the problem themselves.
04:31This beekeeper lost 35 of his hives in just one year.
04:36If you don't set up the traps, you see the hornets fly in front of the beehive entrance,
04:47they choose their menu, they catch a bee, and they fly away with it to go and cut it
04:52into pieces in a quiet little bush.
04:55It's very hard.
04:57When you see that all day long, it's just sad.
05:06Of course, from France, it's just a hop, skip, and a buzz to Jersey.
05:12Directly behind me, about 12 miles away, is the coast of France, and we're in this little
05:16valley and we know that the hornets come in at the valleys and get blown across or can
05:20fly across in about 15 minutes on a following wind.
05:24We have to accept now, after eight years, that we've got a local population as well.
05:31John's been fighting the flow of Asian hornets from the continent since 2017.
05:38We're winning some of the battles.
05:39The war can only be won, really, if the authorities in France were more effective in dealing with
05:46their population.
05:47And so we know that although we would say that we can eradicate them locally, we know
05:52that each spring the new queens emerging in March and April, potentially in France, can
05:58fly across, or we have regular boat trips to and from the French ports around here.
06:03So they could be coming in on our human transport, which is how this insect moves around.
06:11Three hundred and thirty-five nests were found in Jersey in 2023 alone.
06:17These vast numbers do give an opportunity to do some research.
06:22The only chance we've got of managing them and controlling the species, we can't eradicate
06:25them now they're here, so the only chance we've got of managing them is to actually
06:28understand them.
06:29If we can understand a bit more about their behaviour, to do with building the nests,
06:33reproduction, feeding, then we've got a chance of actually controlling them.
06:38They're aggressive when they've just been removed from the nest.
06:45They're not generally aggressive once they're away from the nest, it's only when they're
06:47defending the nest are they really aggressive.
06:50You've got to wait until it gets in the right position, rotating it and lifting it slightly
06:54until it gets in the right position.
06:55There we go.
06:56We've come up with some new techniques for tracking them, attaching streamers to them,
07:02which reduces the time it takes to find a nest significantly.
07:06There, hold it.
07:08The tiny blob of glue on the thorax of the walnut, that's now stuck on.
07:13You can test it a little bit just by moving it side to side and make sure it doesn't come
07:18off.
07:19There.
07:20And the whole point in this is that you can now spot where it travels.
07:23That hornet will, yeah, you can now see that hornet with the naked eyes, you can probably
07:27see that hornet for two or three hundred metres flying and with binoculars even further.
07:32Whereas before, normally, without a streamer attached like that, you'd be lucky to see
07:35them go more than 30, 40 metres before you lose sight of them.
07:39And it will lead you back to the nest.
07:42Yes.
07:43It's probably going to be up there somewhere.
07:50Volunteers are vital in the mission to track and trace the hornets.
07:55Right, this is where we were having the activity.
08:03They were flying up to underneath here.
08:06People set out traps for them, not to kill them, but to follow them.
08:10I'm going to put a tray here.
08:16From these baits, how many nests do you think you're seeing?
08:18Well, we've got the one up the road there.
08:21We've got another one in the valley there.
08:24That's three up there, one over there, four, and one at the fort five.
08:31Once they're in the trap, volunteer Nikki can attach the tinsel or streamers.
08:35I need my glasses.
08:39He's very jittery.
08:40Wait till he settles.
08:41You need patience for this job as well, which I don't have very much of, so this time I've
08:45got him.
08:46But we'll give it a go because I want to find this nest.
08:59No, not in my bag.
09:05Not in my bag.
09:06Go away.
09:08There.
09:09There's your tray.
09:10Look.
09:11I think they'll most probably be from different generation nests, so we'll go for the larger
09:16hornets first because they're the strongest.
09:21And that's the one you put the tinsel on, is it?
09:23That's the one I put the tinsel on.
09:24There he goes.
09:25There he is going now.
09:28Timing how long it takes for the hornet to travel from the trap gives an indication of
09:33how far away the nest is.
09:36100 metres per minute, there and back, will give me an indication of where the nest is.
09:44The trap from below, they weren't flying up into the trees, they were flying through.
09:50It looks as if it's going to be in the undergrowth up there.
09:55Instead of attaching the tinsel, volunteers can also mark the hornets with ink.
10:01And why would you, when do you decide whether to dot or whether to tinsel, is it on the
10:06size of the hornet?
10:07It's purely the environment that we're working in.
10:09In an open environment like this, we can rely on sort of just observing the insect flyway.
10:13If we're working in a wooded valley, within 20 metres you've got a block of trees, so
10:18you can't see a thing.
10:21It's been a long fight.
10:23It's very busy.
10:24Lots of hornets.
10:25But their work to protect the island's bees is paying off so far.
10:31People often think that we must have lost lots of hives here in Jersey, as they have
10:34in continental Europe.
10:36However, because we've been at this from the very start, we were ready for the hornets
10:39when they arrived.
10:41We've kept the numbers down to perhaps 10 hives in eight years that we know about officially.
10:48Just take a look at the size of this nest.
10:51This would have been home to a colony of around 3,000 Asian hornets.
10:56And beekeepers from Kent and Sussex are coming to Jersey to learn what they do here to help
11:02them in the South East fight against this invasive species.
11:09Just like in Jersey, the British public have been warned to be on the lookout so teams
11:14can track and kill the hornets.
11:19The Asian hornet is much larger than your average honeybee or wasp, whilst it's slightly
11:24smaller than the European hornet, which is native to the UK, it can be much more aggressive
11:30when in defence mode, including to humans.
11:35It's mostly black except for a yellow band at its end.
11:40It also has yellow legs and an orange face.
11:45Our European hornets evolved here for hundreds of millions of years, just like the Asian
11:51hornets evolved alongside the species over in Asia where they live.
11:55Through this evolution, their tactics and the tactics of their prey can balance each
12:03other.
12:04Whereas when you put the Asian hornets suddenly where the other species have no idea what
12:10it is, they have no idea how it's going to attack them and they haven't had this time
12:14to evolve, they've got absolutely no chance.
12:17If someone spots one in the wild, they can report it to the government by the Asian Hornet
12:22Watch app.
12:23Currently, only the National Bee Unit and a select few licensed officials have permission
12:30to destroy the nests.
12:33Once we have a report, we may triage it with photographs, which will give us an option
12:38to do a visual ID to make sure that we are dealing with the Asian hornet or the yellow
12:44legged hornet as it's becoming increasingly known.
12:47They will then come out, have a look at the site and then begins the process of triangulation
12:52and mapping to follow the hornets.
12:54So bait traps will be put out.
12:56So we'll wait for the next one, we'll map the next one when it comes back here.
13:02We'll just wait now for her to come up and walk up the net for us.
13:06Well of course, their Achilles heel is that they are regular feeders on a bait station.
13:11They'll keep returning to the same bait station and they fly in a very straight line when
13:14they're going back to the nest.
13:17Here she comes.
13:21From the bait trap, they can see where the hornets are flying.
13:27We use software which they'll track on the software, the direction of flight.
13:31The data we're seeing at the moment, yes, we are still very strongly in the eradication
13:35phase.
13:36We have enough resource that we can do the spring and autumn trapping, even though we're
13:41talking 14,000 checks, you know, in the spring trapping alone, it's a lot of resource.
13:46But if that means that we can cut the number of nests we find down by a third, that to
13:52me is time well spent.
14:00Tony isn't so convinced.
14:03I don't think anybody feels that's feasible other than DEFRA to be honest.
14:08The horse is out there, it's gone past it.
14:09We've got Asian hornets in areas that have spread across the country to a degree from
14:15where it was last year.
14:16They've only got to miss one nest and it's off again next year.
14:23Back in Jersey, they're also not hopeful for Britain's future.
14:27I think they're going to be in for the same sort of numbers of quantities that we've had.
14:32Hundreds of queens being trapped in the spring, many hundreds of nests per equivalent area
14:36the size that we got.
14:37They've got larger areas where there's not a high population, so it's going to be more
14:42difficult to do exactly what we've done with our small sort of dedicated team of trackers.
14:47So I think they're going to probably struggle a bit more than we have to keep the numbers
14:51down.
14:53We've actually got a chance of keeping them out of the UK, but once they sort of establish
14:59themselves here and start breeding, I think that's no longer feasible.
15:04Whilst the future is uncertain, one thing is for sure, the beekeepers and volunteers
15:10won't give up in their war against the invasion of the hornets.