The Bees Will Thank You
Asian hornets are big stinging insects, invasive predatory pests that predate on European honeybee and wild bee populations. Not only do their attacks on bee colonies affect honey production, the pollination of local flora is also affected.
Before moving to Portugal and owning some land, managing the growing invasive Asian hornet population for the sake of the environment was not something that we had even considered. But we now have land, and therefore a local ecosystem, that we are responsible for, and encouraging local pollinators is something that we are always keen to do. In addition, we have thought about adding a few hives to our farm in the future and becoming beekeepers ourselves. Luckily, our local bee expert shared some valuable information with us about what we can do to give the bees a helping hand and we wanted to pass it on.
In Portugal, it is this time of the year (February) when the Asian hornet queens become active. They have ended hibernation and now start to feed, they are on the look out for new places to create their primary nests. Capturing them at this time of the year can significantly reduce the population of this invasive species by preventing them from creating new colonies. One nest can host up to 15,000 hornets, in which 500 of them are future queens. So, to capture the queens, we need traps! These can be made with simple everyday things you have at home.
To make the trap you just need some old plastic bottles, whether that be bottles used for water, juice or soda. For each trap you will use one larger bottle and the necks of two smaller bottles.
To make a trap:
Cut the necks off 2 bottles and remove the lid.
Cut 2 small holes, one on either side of the larger bottle
In the holes, place the necks of the 2 smaller bottles.
Below the lid on the larger bottle, make small holes (about 5mm in size) to allow trapped native species to get out.
Now that the traps are made, all that’s left to do is fill them with a solution that will be utterly irresistible to the Asian hornets. For this you have several options. We used sugar, water, baker’s yeast and oh, some jam that had went mouldy – an economical choice using things we already had at home.
Pour the solution into the traps and they are now ready to put in place. You want to put them in a place at least 1.5m off the ground. We made 8 traps and spread them around our land, hanging from tree branches.
