Talk and demonstrations by Nick Silver, Milly Frankpitt and Rodney White.
Introduction Nick is Education Officer for East Devon Beekeepers, Milly is YLAH coordinator for East Devon, and Rodney is an East Devon member who is part of the team developing the ‘Buzz Copper’ system for detecting Asian hornet predation.
Kent, Brighton and Hove, East Sussex, Hampshire (Southhampton).
Mostly queen sighting and some nests
Via beekeepers and public.
Even primary nests in bird boxes.
Sightings July 2026.
Kent, x3 nests.
Surrey.
Via beekeepers and public.
Nest in garden shed.
Awareness raising in these areas is having a positive effect.
Yellow legged hornet Teams.
Established UK-wide with Beekeeping Associations.
Kent and Surrey very active.
DBKA Team: Gerry Stuart, Simon O’Sullivan, Judith Norman
Milly Frankpitt is the East Devon coordinator.
Role of Verifiers.
Each area has volunteers who are willing to verify a possible sighting.
Emphasis is on getting a photo, or getting a photo sent to them.
No need to go out unless you really feel it is needed. Can just ask for photo.
Monitoring.
BBKA is promoting monitoring throughout July.
Devon are promoting August: easier to see them due to increased population and nest size.
East Devon have concerns about the nest found in West Dorset last year. ED members near the Dorset border are asked to monitor the last 2 weeks in July.
East Devon members will monitor as previous years in August.
Monitoring stations.
Use ‘Trappit’ or make your own bait.
Tub with lid. Make a hole in lid.
J cloth pushed through hole to act as wick for liquid bait.
Soak the wick, monitor, and have your camera ready!
Lots of information on BeeBase about bait, monitoring and spreading awareness.
Rodney – The Buzz Copper project
Rodney is a beekeeper and engineer, with access to some modern manufacturing equipment. He became interested in the Buzz Copper project when he met one of the founder members at the Yellow Legged Asian Hornet Conference at Bridgewater earlier this year. He feels that many of the Asian hornet traps at the time were inefficient, with unacceptable levels of by-catch or require significant beekeeper intervention which is not compatible with his current lifestyle. Electronic detection offered a solution to these problems.
The BuzzCopper project is built on collaboration, working with organisations who share a commitment to protecting UK pollinators.
BuzzCopper uses machine vision and artificial intelligence to automatically detect Yellow-Legged Asian Hornets at bait stations. The device is solar-powered, requires no wiring, and can run autonomously for extended periods. It does need internet connectivity from time to time to upload detections and send alerts. When a detection occurs, the system alerts you via email with photographic evidence.
There are four steps:
1 Deploy
Place the assembled device in your garden or monitoring site. It needs to be where Asian hornets are likely to forage, typically near beehives.
2 Detect
An integrated camera continuously monitors the bait station. The onboard AI model regularly checks for visiting insects. The model has been trained to distinguish Asian Hornets from native species including European Hornets, common wasps, and honey bees. Between checks BuzzCopper sleeps to maximise battery life.
3 Alert
When the AI identifies a potential Asian Hornet, the device captures a photograph and sends an email alert to your registered address. The alert includes the image, a confidence score, and a timestamp. If WiFi is unavailable, detections are stored locally and transmitted when connectivity is restored.
Early reporting is critical — it helps authorities locate and destroy nests before they become established.
The net result is a detection with a high degree of confidence, and NO BY-CATCH!
More information is available on the BuzzCopper website, including images of the device in use, technical details and a comprehensive Sighting Map of AH incursions in the UK.
Nick introduced the theme of his presentation by referring to the recently published book by Andrew Durham entitled Asian Hornet – The Beekeepers Guide to Defences against the Yellow-Legged Hornet Vespa velutina. This looks ahead to a time when YLAH is established in the UK. It is a practical guide encompassing all the learnings from France. If you want your bees to survive and prosper, then this is a ‘Must read’. There is a copy in the EDBK Library. Having read the book twice, Nick is optimistic that it is possible to survive hornet predation!!
If you do nothing…
Hornets will find your apiary by the smell of honey/pollen and the Nazanov pheromone.
Hawking starts outside the hive and increases with time.
One hornet can bring the colony to a stand still as more guard bees are recruited to the front entrance.
4 hornets hawking cause a 40% reduction in foraging, 6 hornets cause a 60% reduction in foraging and 12 hornets will cause foraging paralysis.
Predated colonies become more stressed.
The additional guard bees are recruited at the expense of other tasks.
Nectar, pollen AND water gathering ceases.
Brood rearing is reduced or stopped. This leads to fewer or no winter bees.
The weakest colonies will die after a direct attack and others will die out in the winter through lack of bees and/or resources.
Asian hornet hawking (ringed) causing hive paralysis and bearding
Selective Trapping
The hole size used in selective traps depends on what you aim to trap and the time of year. Asian hornet queens (April) pass through 8mm but cannot pass 6mm. Asian hornet workers (August) pass through 7mm but cannot pass 5.5mm.
This type of museliere is made from transparent plastic attached to the hive, over the normal entrance. It is easy to set up, reducing stress for the bees when they are under attack from predators. It does not prevent bees from being killed by hornets but it does allow the bees to forage and bring it back to their hive.
Hornets cannot enter while flying. They can touch down and enter walking. If the bees are already accustomed to the muzzle, they will be able to defend themselves better.
Electric Harp – Reduces predation by killing hornets
The wires are spaced sufficiently far apart so that bees, with their good eyesight, can fly between the wires, whereas Asian hornets, with poorer eyesight, touch the high voltage wires. The harps are placed in the regions where hornets tend to hawk. This explains the Apiary Layout plan above, which is designed to guide the predators to the killing zones.
Note the price around €63. Similar devices are being sold in the UK for €350 (£300)!!!
There is a lot more for us to learn, so keep yourself up to date with developments. Now is the time to start doing something about hornet invasions.
Many thanks to our three presenters who have spent a lot of time participating and preparing for these talks.
