Coming to a Hive Near You?

 

Asian or Yellow-legged hornets (Vespa velutina) are now well-established in continental Europe. In a season, each individual hornet can kill up to 90,000 pollinating insects. They often lurk outside beehives, picking off the workers one-by-one. In 2024, for the first time, these hornets bred and over-wintered in the UK. The dry and sunny start to the UK Spring, seems to be driving waves of hornet migrations. There have been 'unprecedented' early sighting of Asian hornets in Jersey (The Channel Islands). The first queens have arrived 2 weeks 'early' this year  (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/apr/13/unprecedented-sightings-of-asian-hornets-raise-fears-for-uk-bees). This seems to be an entirely predictable response to global heating. The ranges of many problematic species are likely to be extended. If Asian hornets become well-established in the UK, this would have dire consequences for the production of honey and fruit. It could decimate populations of pollinating insects and even change the distributions of plant species.