Deadly Asian hornet nest destroyed in Britain – but more have been sighted

Bee experts have destroyed the eighth nest of deadly Asian hornets to be found in Britain.

The large invasive insects, which can kill as many as 50 honeybees in a day, were spotted in Highcliffe, near Christchurch in Dorset this week.

Officials from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs – who discovered the nest in an oak tree after spending days setting traps and tracking individual hornets’ flight paths – have received fresh reports of two more of the foreign insects and remain in Christchurch looking for nests.

A nest has also been destroyed in Jersey, where local experts recently said they had seen a 20-fold increase in the number of hornet queens in a year.

Exterminators were transported to a remote location on the Channel Island before suiting up and tackling the nest with an extendable pole with pesticide spray inside.

It is the most recent incident in an ongoing fight against the invasive insects on the Island and last month Alastair Christie, Jersey’s Asian hornet co-ordinator, said the island was entering a ‘critical phase’.

The large predator can wipe out native bee populations by decapitating them and bringing their bodies back to their nests, impacting the pollination of plants.

In 2004, the species began to spread through Europe after arriving in the south of France inside a freight ship.

They have since spread to the Channel Islands where 65 nests have already been destroyed this year alone.

According to government figures, there have been 17 confirmed sightings of individual hornets in the UK and seven nests destroyed since 2016, when they were first seen.

Mark White, the Asian Hornet Action Team co-ordinator for the south west, said: ‘The job of finding these nests can take a day or can take three weeks. We just don’t know.

‘We are using a check and trace technique by setting up a prawn or bacon bait to catch one which is then marked with a dot and released.

‘The plan is that hornet will return to the bait every few minutes and fly off in a particular direction. We keep on moving the bait and if the times get quicker and quicker then we know we are in the right area.’

In July, Mark claimed to have counted 80 Asian hornet queens – compared to just four at the same time last year.

Each nest produces about 200 to 300 virgin queens.

Which is bad news for humans as well as bees, as we are intolerant to hornet venom.

Last year a resident on Jersey nearly died from anaphylactic shock when he was stung after disturbing a nest while cutting his garden hedge.