Intense predation by V. velutina nigrithorax on honey bees can lead to a reduction in the strength of honey bee colonies and subsequent collapse of the colony. In some European regions, wasp predation has caused the death of nearly 50% of bee colonies. Losses of 30-80% have been reported in France (Kennedy et al. 2018;  Monceau et al. 2014;  2016).The first population of Velutina in Central Europe was detected in a Hungarian settlement, Kimle, in August 2023 (Márta and Vas 2023).

Defensive options

The threat posed by invasive species is often underestimated, even though the importance of rapid eradication action is crucial in the early stages of establishment (Roy et al. 2023).

Due to the widespread spread of velutina, trapping campaigns were launched in the first affected countries to reduce the hornet fever population and its effects, but these were not effective enough (Monceau et al. 2012; 2017). Wasp traps can therefore be used more for presence confirmation and monitoring, as they are not selective enough and can also kill many of the native species(Monceau et al. 2012; 2017, Requier et al. 2019), and should be used carefully to reduce the negative impact on other insect species (Monceau et al. 2013).

The most effective solution at the moment is velutina finding and destroying nests, especially if it occurs before the colony reproduces (Feàs et al 2019). Fontos megjegyezni, hogy fészkek elpusztítása risky, time-consuming and costly művelet. Wasps are more aggressive than European hornets in defending their nests, and they can also inject their venom, which can cause serious eye damage. All efforts should be made to prevent them from establishing and spreading in new places.

Finding the nests

The velutina builds a much bigger nest (Monceau et al. 2015) than our beaver. While the nests of the domestic hornet tend to be in enclosed places, the velutina can nest almost anywhere, in enclosed places and in the open: in tree tops or bushes, on roofs and eaves, underground in the ground and even under gutter covers (Edwards 1980; Starr and Jacobson 1990 ; Starr 1992; Martin 1995 ; Nakamura and Sonthichai 2004, Nguyen et al. 2006 ; Kim et al. 2006 ; Choi et al. 2012 ). There are several methods for locating nests. Infrared thermal imaging has been tested in Portugal, the UK (Semmence et al. 2018;  Kennedy et al. 2018) and Italy (Bortolotty et al. 2016). The effectiveness of radio telemetry has been reported in several studies, tested in a variety of field conditions and used successfully to detect nests in the UK and France(Kennedy et al. 2018).

As an alternative to radio telemetry in a study in Italy, the harmonic entomological radar (Maggiora et al. 2019) were tested. Unfortunately, because of its high cost its widespread practical application is still not available.

In the following few videos we would like to show you the behaviour of the Asian hornet, with a special focus on the nest approach:

•  Reaction of Asian hornet wasps to lawnmower start-up

• Behaviour of the wasp when approaching the nest in open ground and bush:

• Velutina nest under a manhole cover:

• French beekeeper present, Central European vision? - Unsuccessful "solutions" against wasps.

• In the video below, the damage caused by the wasp is demonstrated in a demonstration of the vineyards.

Numerous images are available courtesy of beekeepers and wasp control companies. This is just a brief demonstration that the problem is real.