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Love Your Parish

Asian Hornet

The Asian Hornet is the insect world’s top predator. It is beginning to establish itself in the UK, mainly in the south. Since arriving in Europe in 2004 it has spread quickly in all directions, causing major environmental damage and some fatalities, decimating honey bee colonies.

 Its impact on the insect food chain is huge – honey bees are only a part.  Consequently, it impacts the whole of the environment and agriculture, and ultimately our economy and society.  Asian Hornets will affect us all in some way.

Salisbury & District Bee Keepers Association (SDBKA) really need our help with the following roles:

  • Track and Trace.  This involves tagging hornets to see where they go so we can find their nests.
  •  The National Bee Unit may task the Asian Hornet Taskforce to send a registered and trained verifier to confirm a sighting or a nest that has been reported really does involve Asian Hornets.
  •  These volunteers maintain the Trapping Plan, deploy the traps, monitor them and ensure they are operating correctly, whether this is for queens in the spring or workers in the summer and early autumn.  They also catch and kill Asian Hornets.
  • Community support.  These SDBKA members support local communities with expert beekeeping and, where they can, hornet advice and information if your community group or organisation would welcome a talk on the Asian Hornet Threat or further advice get in touch (see contact below).

TO OFFER YOUR HELP email aht-coordinator@sdbka.org

If you don’t know much about the Asian Hornet and the threat it poses to our honey-bees, our food chain and to humans you can watch this video here is a brief introduction https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1mLgrvoHzA

You can also  visit the SDBKA website for a wealth of easy-to-digest information here https://www.sdbka.org/asian-hornet

See here for Laverstock & Ford’s  Community Emergency Volunteer ACTION CARD on what to do if you encounter an Asian Hornet Community Emergency Volunteers 

The best advice if you encounter an aggravated Asian Hornet, or disturb a nest, is to get away as fast and as far as you can before taking further action.

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