French wildlife and beekeeping

  Source info - Office for Insects and Their Environment, France Asian hornets are now well established in mainland France, and we have to accept it: it will be impossible to eradicate this species. Given this reality, the question is not how to make them disappear, but how to learn to limit their impacts without worsening an already alarming situation for French wildlife. Adopting a balanced approach, based on scientific knowledge, is essential today. Protecting domestic bees is important socially and economically, but this should not come at the expense of other wild insects that help maintain functional ecosystems. Managing Asian hornets cannot rely on isolated actions or responses driven by fear or instinctive rejection. On the contrary, it requires cooperation between beekeepers, scientists, local authorities, and public officials in order to put forward coherent, well-thought-out, effective solutions that respect living beings, especially other animals. It's important that de...

  We are increasingly reading about hospitalisations and deaths resulting from Asian hornet stings BUT are Asian Hornets any more aggressive or dangerous than our native European Hornet and Social colony forming wasps? You may think so if you only go by media sources but in reality this isn't actually the case despite there being some well publicised reports of deaths. Read the full post. About the Dangers from Asian Hornets in France  

I know it is stating the obvious but every year is different in the natural world and no two years can be the same, however this is becoming increasingly exaggerated. Habitat loss, agricultural methods and climate change along with other factors are causing rapid major changes for our native species requiring them to adapt or perhaps in some cases disappear completely. For some species this is creating opportunities and they have expanding populations that are sometimes associated with an expansion in their range. However for most species there are accelerating declines and this in turn leads to changes of behaviour as species attempt to adapt. Where I live most insect species have been in overall decline for the last 25 years and this year has been abysmal for them but I want to talk specifically about hornets.  Following the usual slow start as nests were established and populations grew I started to see a gradual increase in both Asian and European hornets in t...

It’s not that Asian Hornets venom is anymore toxic than our native hornet and wasps, or even that they are more aggressive away from their nest. It’s more about where Asian Hornets are increasingly choosing to make their nest. I’ve chosen a few recent cases to illustrate this. In Montmorillon, Vienne , a  76 year old man  was stung more than 30 times by Asian Hornets in his garden when cutting a small hedge outside his house on the 30th of October 2019 . When his wife came to his assistance he was covered in hornets and she was stung 5 times before neighbours arrived with thick clothing and managed with the use of wasp sprays to get him away from them. He was transported to the hospital by the Pompiers to receive treatment. The couple had never noticed the presence of the hornets in the hedge which is about 50cm high. Earlier in the year on 1st August, in the Nantes area another man was stung more than 10 times when he disturbed an Asian Hornet nest in ...

You would be forgiven for thinking that people that keep bees would be concerned about the environment and the general well being of all creatures. Sadly this is often not the case; indeed many bee keepers make a living as so called pest destroyers. Anyway as they say “The road to Hell is paved with good intentions” and in this case bee keepers, bee keeping groups and other wildlife groups have been extolling the virtues of trapping Asian Hornets, especially in the early spring when the new queens are coming out of hibernation without thinking or considering the repercussions. The traps that are usually based on the principle of a plastic bottle with a small entrance, often the inverted neck of the bottle, are suspended with a quantity of attractant added. There are various mixtures used but Brown beer, Cider and Cherry syrup mixes seem to be favoured, the argument being that this won’t attract honey bees. It will however attract European Hornets and our native social ...

Cheeky or what? You may find this a bit hard to believe and it certainly is an eye opener but now the leaves have started to fall Lynne spotted this yesterday when I was out for the day – an Asian Hornet nest actually situated almost directly over one of my hives and no more than 30 metres from several others. Click on photos to enlarge. So what does this tell us? It tells us that maybe, just maybe, the Asian Hornet isn’t quite as dangerous to honey bees as has been thought. It also tells us to always be very careful when drawing conclusions based on limited third party information that may lack a solid foundation or without knowing all the surrounding facts of any given situation, something we can all learn a lesson from. Of course this doesn’t mean that they can’t be a problem in some circumstances and it may be that they are modifying their behaviour, adapting to local conditions and taking other prey or simply that one Asian Hornet nest won’t have a serious impac...

Like most tales there is a history of events and like most tales that involve me it contains a somewhat casual randomness of action that is characteristic of my approach to life. In the spring of last year I collected some bees in a ruchette, (small hive box), and returned home with them around dusk and spotting an empty African Top Bar Hive with a flat lid I thought that will do and put them on top of it. The colony grew as most of them do and as this was now their orientated spot I transferred them into a full hive in the same position. Click on images to enlarge. This spring I added a honey super along with all the other hives that required them and left them to it just keeping an eye on things in case anything went seriously wrong and also when and if supers need adding or changing. Then about four weeks ago when I was by that particular hive I saw an Asian Hornet fly into the empty Top Bar Hive and not come back out. Ooooop’s thought I, better keep an eye on that ...

Having injured my back which has put a temporary halt to all strenuous activity and as it’s been 31°C this afternoon I thought I’d have a wander by the River Charente just to the east of Civray where I could mooch about in the shade of the trees and see what, if anything, turned up or just being lazy in other words, something I'm quite experienced in. The river Charente has had Asian Hornets almost since they arrived in France as they appeared to follow the river and the tall poplar tree plantations that board the river have provided ideal places for them to make their nests. With this in mind it was no surprise to see some flying around by the riverside but my interest was taken by the fact that they were taking nectar from Water Figwort and stopped to take a few photos, or rather try to as they wouldn't stay still.   Click on photos to enlarge. It’s worth mentioning at this point that the River Charente is a very clean river in the upper reach...

The war against the Asian Hornet continues. Conops vesicularis is a small fly from the genus Conops in the family Conopidae and its larvae are endoparasites of bees and wasps. Females inject their eggs into the target species where the larvae develop by eating the host causing its death – all very charming I can see you thinking however it may be a help in controlling the Asian Hornet, an invasive introduced species that targets Honey bees. Three researchers from the 'Institut de recherche sur la biologie de l'insecte (CNRS/Université François Rabelais de Tours) have been conducting research into whether native parasitic species could have an impact on the health of Asian Hornet colonies. They scrutinized the life of 12 colonies of Asian hornets situated near their laboratory in Tours . The colonies were monitored twice a week between June and August 2013 and out of the 12 colonies studied only three developed normally. It was the others that interested the rese...

As far as I can gather this really hasn't been a good year at all for the social wasps including Hornets in much of France . It’s that bad first 6 months to the year again that caused all the problems, cold nights and too wet, especially bad for the ground nesting wasp species. Now I guess a lot of people will be happy with this as they are a group of insects that people generally love to hate, or if hate’s too strong a word, dislike intensely. Broadly I can understand why, they are known to sting in certain circumstances and very few people actually enjoy pain or the reaction that can sometimes follow, swelling, itching, soreness and so on although in reality most people are rarely stung or experience very strong reactions if they are.  Of course as usual the media plays a largely negative role with "shock stories" should someone actually die, usually as a result of disturbing a nest and receiving a large number of stings, or perhaps because they are one of the ...

Usually I don't need to feed any of my bees before winter but due to the bad weather this year, especially the first 6 months, everything was behind with some colonies swarming as late as July with a corresponding slow build up in colony population strength. As things worked out it wasn't too bad by the end of August although the honey yield was poor, probably only about a third of what it should have been. Most hives were already well loaded and heavy with honey for the winter leaving all of September remaining to forage the ivy which was abundant this year. Ivy, a much maligned plant, is a great source of nectar and pollen for the bees at the end of the season and plays an important role for a number of species. However I had half a dozen underweight colonies from late reared Queens and I've been feeding these to boost their population size and hopefully get them up to weight with sufficient honey stores to get them through winter but I'm still left with th...

Just when I thought things would go quiet on the "bee and wasp" front I received a phone call first thing this morning from a lady with an Asian Hornet nest in a cavity in a stone barn wall. Due to the awful weather in most of France for the first 6 months of 2013 all "wasp" family species have had a bad year with a reduced number of successful colonies and a late start for those that finally got going. This one had grown rapidly in the last 5 or 6 weeks, outgrown whatever space they had inside the wall leading to a requirement to expand the nest outside of the wall. Still very active, continuing to grow and at head height from the ground the nest was becoming a danger to the householder, her dogs and horses. Of course this is also one of those cases with an introduced species where destruction is a necessity especially if there is a likelihood of next years Queens being killed and reducing the number of colonies next year. Always sad to have to destr...