Man stung 30 times by Asian Hornets in France

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 the water meter box and fortunately suffered no serious effects, however the day before at Grayan-et-l'Hôpital, Gironde, a woman died following multiple stings when she disturbed an Asian Hornet nest at about 1.5 metres from the ground when going to her post box.

In these and most other cases attacks occur when nests are disturbed, whether that is Wasps, Bees or Hornets. I have myself suffered the consequences of putting a brush cutter into a wasp nest at ground level and know how easy it is to hack away without first looking for any obvious nest activity. 

What’s becoming increasingly clear for anyone that has been following the evolving situation with Asian Hornets year on year is that they are increasingly making their nests close to the ground. This inevitably leads to an increase in attacks. (European Hornet nests are always under cover in buildings or hollow trees making accidental disturbance less likely).

Other than in a handful of cases a year in France very few people actually die from stings.

More about stings LINK HERE

Chris

A Grass carrying wasp and a Mud dauber in France

A couple of interesting introduced species in France that many people will have come across and which are noticeable due to their somewhat unusual behaviour.

Isodontia mexicana known as the grass carrying wasp and Sceliphron curvatum a “Mud dauber” have established themselves rather successfully in France. Isodontia mexicana can be found in all regions and Sceliphron curvatum is so far restricted to more or less the southern two-thirds of the country but the expansion is rapid.  Both belong to the Sphecidae which are a cosmopolitan family of wasps of the suborder Apocrita that includes sand wasps, mud daubers, and other thread-waisted wasps.

Isodontia mexicana arrived in Europe from North America in the 1960s. For several years, it remained confined to the Mediterranean region, but from 2003, a year which was particularly hot, it began to extend its range northward. It is currently found in France, Switzerland, Hungary, Italy and Spain. They are black with smoky brown wings and measure between 15 and 25mm with females being larger than males. The adults feed on nectar with plants such as mint, wild carrot and other umbellifers being especially favoured.

Females use existing holes or hollow plant stems as nest sites where she may create as few as 2 cells or as many as 8 cells depending on space available each cell being separated by plant fragments. Each cell is provisioned with a living grasshopper or cricket that has been paralysed and on which she places an egg thus providing the fresh food the larva requires for its development. Finally the hole is stuffed with dry grass or stalks, hence the common English name. Eggs that are laid late in the season will overwinter after sheltering in a cocoon they have spun (diapause) and emerge in May or June. Early broods at this time of year will produce a summer generation that develops in a few weeks giving us two generations in a calendar year. 

    Click photos to enlarge

Photos above of Isodontia mexicana & nests

If you have a “bee hotel” and live where there are plenty of grasshoppers there is a very good chance that they will use that. Only significant predators are thought to be birds.

~~~~~~~~

~~~~ 

Sceliphron curvatum.  The native range of this species extends from Iraq to northern India and Nepal, and from Pakistan to Kyrgyzstan and eastern Uzbekistan.  The evidence points to the fact that it probably arrived in France a little before 2010 when the first confirmed identifications were made following a progression eastwards across Europe starting in Austria in the 1990’s that was not a natural occurrence. .

Adults are between 15 and 25mm. The thorax is black with 2 yellow bands and the abdomen is orange with dark reddish bands.

After mating, the female builds a nest of mud that is made up of several tubular cells, each in the region of 20mm long that are constructed progressively at the same time as being provisioned with an egg and its food supply. Each of these cells is intended for a larva. When each cell is complete, the female hunts and stores enough spiders, usually from 6 to 15 but can be as many as 40, to feed the larva until it is metamorphosed. Live prey is paralyzed, thus constituting a reserve of fresh food. Having laid the egg on one of the spiders she closes the cell with mud. She continues building the nest until it has about 25 cells.

The larvae develop during the course of a few weeks and then turn into pupae in their cell, where they spend the winter. Adults emerge from their cells in the spring.

The nests are often to be found in peoples homes attached to furniture, folds in curtains, clothing and so on. I have sometimes found them between the roof of a hive and the lid and it’s likely that they search out places that are both warm and dry.

Photos above of Sceliphron curvatum. and nests

As introduced species it’s hard to say how much impact either of them causes or could cause in the future for indigenous species.

Chris

Ivy in France - too important to ignore

I was always lead to believe when younger, (as were many people), that Ivy “strangled” trees and was a thug to be removed but contrary to popular beliefs Ivy is not a parasite, does not normally damage sound buildings or walls, is rarely a threat to healthy trees and if we look around it shouldn’t take long to find plenty of examples of large old trees supporting Ivy that is of a great age.......

Read more - Link to web page.

Chris

Trapping Asian Hornets

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 wasps which are suffering enough already and generally in decline even if you may not think so if you are at place where people are congregating to eat and consume sugary drinks in summer. Of course other insects and flies will also be drawn to the traps and suffer an unnecessary slow death. All of this shows a remarkable ignorance of the current situation of insects decline that is having a devastating effect on our wildlife. 

Of course there are selective ways to kill Asian Hornet Queens in the early spring but they require a little effort, but in my opinion that effort is well worth while if it means protecting our native species.

In early spring Bee keepers or individuals can try to kill as many Asian Hornet Queens as possible by hand. They will be easily lured to the slightest scent of honey and I find swatting them with a plastic tennis racket is the easiest method and we can then avoid killing European Hornets and other wasps. 

ASIAN HORNET

Chris

Pesticides, Herbicides, Fungicides and GM crops all in the French news.

How the time flies when you’re busy and when the bees are swarming it doesn’t leave time for much else, especially if you are like me and are always leaving everything to the last minute. In this case it’s preparing enough hives and frames for the swarms to be housed in which I’ve just about kept up with, (about 25 so far). Then nature decided to lend a hand by dishing out the rather vile weather we have been experiencing for the last week which has prevented any more colonies from swarming giving me some catch up time. Unfortunately this won’t have helped the bees at all. Any colonies prepared and waiting to swarm may have had to tear down and destroy any Queen cells that were about to hatch and colonies that had already swarmed may have had problems mating their new Queens with all the cold wind and heavy rainstorms which seem to be an increasing spring feature of the weather in this part of France. The requirement to be around my hives for swarming does rather hamper my other activities at this time of year which is a shame, but back out and about soon with some interesting field trips penciled in.

Click on images to enlarge.

On the agricultural front there has been some good news recently in France with the total banning of aerial spraying without any exceptions. This has been an EU law since 2009 but individual member countries can derogate from this when and if they consider it’s required. In France this has been principally in the overseas territories of Martinique, the Antilles and Guadeloupe with certain of the vineyards of Mâcon, (Burgandy), in mainland France. No future authorisations will be granted. Additionally all use of land based sprays will soon only be permitted in the evening and night, not in the daytime although how this will work out and be enforced in practice remains to be seen.

Cultivation of Genetically modified crops has been totally forbidden by the French government which will please many people myself included although I’m sure the corporations will fight back again and again to try and get this overturned.

Back to the vineyards where it seems the river Charente between Angouleme and Saints is the most polluted stretch of river in France with the finger pointed firmly at the Cognac grape growing regions.  A study in 2011 by the highly respected CHU Poitiers showed a higher mortality rate for the population living in the Charente vineyards. Scientists found an over representation of Parkinson's disease (29%) and blood cancers lymphoma types (19%).  Atrazine, desethyl atrazine and the “worlds’ favourite herbicide” glyphosate have all been recorded in substantial levels. Dependence on chemicals at every stage of most French wine production is reducing it to no more than another industrial process, sad days indeed. Even now as I write this there is a report in the paper Sud Ouest of an incident on May 5th at a school in Villeneuve near Bourg-sur-Gironde surrounded by vineyards where 23 students from two classes of primary school and their teacher began to feel the same symptoms of pain in the throat, tingling of the tongue, eye irritation, nausea and headache in the late morning. Earlier, the director had tried to contact the mayor, Catherine Verges, who is also one of the two owners of the vineyards adjacent to the school, to stop the spraying that was underway but to no avail. These incidents are not uncommon and I have heard the tales of people feeling unwell in the vineyards since we came to live in France. The craziest thing of all is that Emmanuel Giboulot a biodynamic winemaker since the 1970s was summoned to the Criminal Court of Dijon this year for refusing to use a chemical product to control flavescence dorée, a bacterial disease of vines. On April 7^th he was fined €1000 following which Emmanuel Giboulot said “I do not feel guilty at all. I do not agree with the court's analysis and I still consider that it was not justified to treat the vines against flavescence dorée in the department of Côte-d'Or in 2013 when no outbreak had been detected.” He went on to say “that a product called Pyrevert that is based on natural pyrethrum, an extract of dried chrysanthemum flowers is permitted in organic agriculture but this insecticide is not selective and although it destroys the leafhopper which is the insect vector for the disease flavescence dorée it also destroys a large part of the auxiliary fauna on which I rely for regulating the ecosystem of my vineyard.”  Which is to my mind a totally logical attitude; if and only if there is a requirement to control something it should be targeted and proportionate.

Too much to mention everything in the garden but it hasn’t been good again for butterflies and I've only just seen a few Hornet Queens and Common wasp Queens in the last week and none of the smaller wasps. It does seem that the number of insects is decreasing year after year although I have no hard evidence for that but with the relentless expansion of the “green cereal desert” and given the massive levels of “cides” that are being sprayed here all the time, both agricultural and domestic, it wouldn’t be a surprise. However it isn’t all one way traffic, woodland species seem plentiful with lot’s of Violet oil beetles early in the year, lot’s of baby Bush crickets in our fields and the one butterfly that’s abundant this spring is the Southern speckled wood. All the common birds have nested well on our land and many have fledged their young such as Long tailed tits, Goldfinches, Blackbirds and Black caps. Nightingales are once again everywhere making their presence known with their almost non stop singing with Golden Oriole arriving here in the last week.

Enough for now, it's getting late,

Chris

Three hairy caterpillars and an ichneumon.

I've been coming across three common hairy caterpillars for the last few weeks as I do every year in autumn and although they are widespread and common I thought I'd just pop them on here. Anyway, I often find that caterpillars are prettier than the moth or butterfly they will end up as one day if they make it AND they don't fly away when I want to take a photo!

These three all spend the winter as a caterpillars and pupate in the spring.

The Fox Moth Macrothylacia rubi is called either Anneau du diable  or Bombyx de la ronce in French. They belong to the family of Lasiocampidae and as one of the French names Bombyx de la ronce implies one of its preferred food plants is bramble, (no shortage of that on our land), although they will happily eat a range of food plants including different species of heather. Moth here.

The Ruby Tiger Phragmatobia fuliginosa is called Écaille cramoisie in French and belongs to the family Arctiidae. Some preferred caterpillar foods include Ragworts, Plantains, Heather,  Docks, Dandelion, Spindle and Broom, so quite a selection. Moth here.

The Garden Tiger Arctia caja  is called  L' Ecaille martre in French and is from the family Arctiidae. Caterpillar food plants include raspberry, blackberry, viburnum, honeysuckle, heather and broom. This caterpillar really is the most splendid "beast" and the moth isn't bad either. Moth here.

The Ichneumon I've been seeing is both widespread and very common in late summer and autumn, the Yellow Ophion Ophion luteus called Ophion jaune-brun in French. It is from the family of Ichneumonidae which are a family within the order Hymenoptera, (Ants, Bees, Wasps and Sawflies) and these are generally called Ichneumon wasps. It is an endoparasite  of various caterpillars and the female injects a single egg into each of its victims where it then hatches and consumes the caterpillar from the inside, perhaps not the nicest of methods to reproduce but an interesting insect all the same.

Don't forget, all hairy caterpillars can cause itching or rashes on sensitive skin as I remember from my childhood, especially when we used to put them down the back of each others shirts - poor caterpillars!

Chris

Poor year for wasps and hornets

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 relatively rare people that go into Anaphylactic shock from wasp stings. However when looked at objectively what we find is that wasp stings are just about at the bottom of the list of events likely to cause a serious ongoing health problem or death.

If I take for convenience the official cause of deaths in 2010 for England and Wales which totaled 493,242 registered during the year we find that only five people suffered fatal “contact with hornets, wasps and bees".

BUT a total of more than 3,600 people died in falls, including 50 who slipped on ice or snow.  99 people were killed in falls from beds, 52 in falls from chairs, 655 fell down flights of stairs and 13 died accidentally after falling off a cliff.  

Needless to say you will have gathered by now where I'm going and that I quite like wasps and hornets and I would like to think not without good reason.

Top of the list is that they kill tons and tons of other insects throughout a full season to feed their larvae. The insects chosen will vary according to the species and to what are available but will include lots of aphids and other so called garden pests. Beats using pesticides and promotes balance.

Secondly they are a food source themselves for other creatures. A couple of good examples are the Honey Buzzard, Pernis apivorus,  that will rip apart perhaps a 100 or more wasp nests during the summer months to feed both themselves and their young with the larvae, and the Bee-eater Merops apiaster will also take large numbers of wasps and hornets among other insects to feed themselves and their young.

A lack of wasp nests will lead to Honey Buzzards digging out Bumble bee nests which is something to be avoided if at all possible.

So perhaps wasps and hornets aren't really that bad after all?

Links: 
Honey Buzzard in France
Bee-eater in France

Asian Hornet nest in a stone barn wall.

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 destroy such a beautiful creation and kill the occupants.

As far as I am aware this year, 2013, has produced some of the first examples of Asian Hornets making nests in cavities since their arrival in France in 2004. The usual place has always been in the open suspended from a tree branch or in bushes. Whether this indicates an actual change in behavior or simply a result of the bad weather preventing them from moving the initial nest remains to be seen. Certainly it would make their destruction easier than attempting to reach them 30 meters up a tree.

Information about the Asian Hornet can be found at Asian Hornet in France