Yellow-legged Hornet

Fascinating facts about the Yellow-legged Hornet

• A single Asian hornet nest is a paper-filled egg shape at least 50 cm (20 in) long and can house several thousand workers, each armed with a powerful stinger. The colony starts low in shrubs, then abandons that site and builds a new, higher nest, likely to avoid parasites.
• When hunting honey bees, a hornet patrols a tiny 0.5 m² (0.60 sq yd) airspace above a hive, chasing off rivals and snapping up bees one by one. In its native range it mainly attacks Apis cerana, which can heat-ball the hornet to lethal temperatures, but the introduced western honey bee, Apis mellifera, is taken more easily.
• The Asian hornet first slipped into France in 2004, likely hidden in pottery boxes, and by 2009 thousands of nests dotted the Bordeaux region; by the end of 2015 it had spread across most of France. It reached the UK mainland on 20 September 2016 near Tetbury, where the nest was destroyed before breeding adults were found. After warm, dry summers, the French population tripled between 2021 and 2022, showing how climate can fuel rapid expansion. These dates map a swift invasion front that now covers much of Europe, underscoring the urgency of early surveillance.
• Scientists now turn tiny radio tags into "Trojan horses" to locate hidden hornet nests. After anesthetising a 22-mm (0.8-in) hornet, they attach a lightweight tag to its petiole and release it; the buzzing beacon leads researchers toward the nest. Using this method, Kennedy's team tracked five nests, the farthest over 1.3 km (0.8 mi) from the capture point, and destroyed each one. This high-tech chase turns a predator's own navigation into a tool for control.
• Asian hornet queens grow to about 30 mm (1.2 in) long, males to 24 mm (0.94 in) and workers to 20 mm (0.79 in), making them noticeably smaller than the European hornet.

Sources

Every fact above was checked against these pages, and kept only where one of them states it.

• Wikipedia
• Mongabay

At a glance

About the Yellow-legged Hornet

As the Yellow-legged Hornet navigates the sun-drenched landscape, its iridescent body glimmers like polished amber, a striking juxtaposition to the menacing reputation that precedes it. With an air of purposeful intent, it slices through the air, its agile wings beating at a frenetic pace as it embarks on its relentless pursuit of sweet nectar and unsuspecting prey. In a whirlwind of movement, this diminutive but formidable hunter leaves an indelible mark on the ecosystem, a testament to the unyielding resilience of a creature often misunderstood.

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