New hope for honeybees following breakthrough in tracking predators

Telegraph

2 days ago

Giant Asian hornets kill British honeybees and destroy entire hives in hours - but scientists now have a new weapon in the fight against the destructive insects.
The sound the predatory hornets make is lower in tone than that of native honeybees and this could speed up the discovery, identification, and destruction of nests before they can wipe out nearby colonies.
Asian hornets eat honeybees and can eviscerate a beehive in just two days. The non-native bug with yellow legs is twice the size of a normal bee.
They are increasingly being found in the UK, with twice as many sightings so far in 2025 as in the same period for 2024.
Officials ask members of the public who see an Asian hornet nest to report it to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), who will destroy it if confirmed.
Scientists from the University of Southampton conducted the first analysis of the sound the hornets make and found they have a lower tone than the buzz of honeybees.
The work has been presented at conferences and is in the process of publication in a scientific journal.
There is about an octave of difference between the two pitches of the flying insects analysis found, with English honeybees at 210Hz and the Asian hornets humming at 125Hz.
'Asian hornet nests can be difficult to find because there is no typical place where they build them,' said Sophie Gray, co-author of the research. 'They can be underground, or 50 feet up a tree, or in a bird box, or a bush – they can be anywhere.
'It typically takes two to three days to find the nest once a sighting of an Asian hornet is reported – and in that time the hornets can have completely killed a beehive of upwards of 20,000 bees.'
She added: 'We believe that the acoustic signature of Asian hornet nests can be used to locate and destroy the nests.
'Importantly, we believe this detection can be done from a safe distance as we have found that Asian hornets become highly aggressive within 10 metres of the nest, which is difficult since the nests are often well camouflaged despite their size.'
The Asian hornet arrived in Europe in 2004 and is now established in France and other countries, and was first seen in Britain in 2016. This year is on track to be a record high for Asian hornet sightings with 37 confirmed sightings already.
Experts urged officials to take advantage of the 'window of opportunity' before they become fully established.
The Liberal Democrats have accused the Government of not taking the issue sufficiently seriously and demanded Defra set up a task force to deal with the problem.
Martin Wrigley, the MP for Newton Abbot, said: 'The previous Conservative government was asleep at the wheel in their response to Asian hornets so the government has got to wake up to the risks and get a grip on this invasive species now – especially ahead of August and September, when new females are born.
'We urgently need a fully fleshed task force dedicated to this invasive insect to reduce delays between reporting nests and their destruction. It's time this Government took our biodiversity and the safety of our communities seriously.'