French wildlife and beekeeping

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 ...

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 ...

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

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 ...

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 activ...

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 f amily 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  Arc...

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 ...

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...