Wasp catcher is catching European hornets

[GruB]

We have some of the big glass wasp catchers and on the weekend I noticed I was getting some very large European wasp like insects caught inside the devices.  I have just Googled them and ascertained they are European hornets.




European hornet - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Does anyone else get these in their garden?

[border-rider]

Yes, sometimes here

We had a nest in the last house when we moved in, and they used to come in the house at night (they're nocturnal)

They were fairly good-tempered and we didn't have any issues with them.  In the winter, when they'd died, I took the nest down from the attic - it was like a 1972 lampshade

We quite liked them.

[Wowbagger]

We saw this specimen in a chapel in Suffolk in May last year.

I don't know whether hornets are becoming more common. I know my sis in law had a problem in her school with them a few years ago. I think it just depends where the buggers decide to make their nest.

[GruB]

Cheers.  We are getting 4 or more a day at present.  The wiki site that I linked to states that in Germany they are protected and if you remove a nest it is a 50,000 euro fine !!

[border-rider]

Removing a next entails killing them all.  The advice we got was to leave them be, let them die off naturally in the winter. If you don't wind them up they're fine - I once ended up standing on one leg on a kitchen stool with a hornet down my shirt.  It ended OK

[GruB]

We haven't got a nest. I suspect it is down along the canal which is only a couple of hundred metres away over the back field.  They are just coming into my traps. 

[GruB]

They are mighty large though.

[border-rider]

Mmm

I think the Wiki size estimate is a bit conservative.  Ours were def. bigger than that and they weren't queens.  I had a chat with a bee/wasp expert at the Newbury Show at the time and he said "Bet they're just wasps you've got".  I  said "They're an inch and a half long".  "Ah" he said.

[GruB]

Yep, and they are red just like in the Wiki site so I am quite sure I have the right species.
Ours are the same size as you mentioned.

[rogerzilla]

We had an absolute monster hornet in the car once going through France.  I don't think a police ARV could have stopped and deployed its occupants as quickly as we did.  Then we all stood looking at it crawling on the rear window and waiting for it to fly out - no-one was going in after it  

[andrew_s]

There have been some in the local pub most evenings recently.
Offputting to the nervous customer

Tonight's

[Cudzoziemiec]

We often found hornets in the flat in India. They liked to sun themselves inside the east-facing windows in the morning.  Obviously they weren't European hornets, but I can't work out what they were. There is an Asian giant hornet but the pics in that Wikipedia page aren't showing for some reason, and I don't think ours were as big as 50mm. I can't find any other Asian hornet species. They never stung anyone either, probably luckily as that page describes them as having vicious stings.

[andygates]

They always remind me of Apache attack helicopters, for some reason.  Skinny elegant DEATH probably.

Not seen any for years, down 'ere in Devon.

And for amusement: Schmidt Sting Pain Index - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[border-rider]

They always remind me of Apache attack helicopters, for some reason.

Heh

The occasion I referred to upthread (with the shirt) was at our housewarming party, in 1994.  We'd successfully operated an airlock system to keep them out (they're attracted to light, like moths) but one of the smokers let one into the kitchen.

It buzzed down the middle of the room at head height, and the effect was like the parting of the Red Sea

[alexb]

I remember a woman bursting naked from a shower in a French campsite once when I was a teenager. The reason, two fighting hornets had just dropped onto her from the lamp fitting.

One of those pivotal teenage memories I think.

[andygates]

All that is missing is Kenneth Williams.

[Wowbagger]

I remember a woman bursting naked from a shower in a French campsite once when I was a teenager. The reason, two fighting hornets had just dropped onto her from the lamp fitting.

One of those pivotal teenage memories I think.

How did you train the hornets to do that?

[Gaseous Clay]

A friend of mine had lots of them in and around his garden (quite a remote place) - the majority appeared at night, as has been pointed out, but sitting outside during beer and BBQ was, for us, uneventful if not a little unnerving.  They appeared to be a lot less aggressive than wasps and didn't mind being "encouraged" to move along!

Having said that, i would not like to experience a sting from one!  Has anybody been stung by a hornet?!

[onb]

A couple of points ,the stingometer doesnt mention bumble stings ,I remember as a child a relative was stung by a bumble and the swelling was massive ,while on the subject of swelling there was a local legend about a guy who used to trap wasps in a jar shake it up to get them angry and then shove his willy in the jar for a good stinging

[rogerzilla]

I can confirm that a honey bee sting is worse than one from a "yellowjacket", or jaspers as we call them round here.