> In the last eight weeks, I have counted 361 queens. The meagre three traps might sound irrelevant in the face of the growing continental scale of the problem, and perhaps they are. However, a mature hornet nest in autumn can have 6,000 individuals, so potentially over two million fewer hornets will be patrolling our local landscape come autumn.
Good. Too bad they're not in Ireland. The country might lack woodland for them to breed in. Artificial nests perhaps? (I think many countries should invest in biodiversity also, on a strategic level, for multitude of reasons, but resilience to pests is one.)
> In the last eight weeks, I have counted 361 queens. The meagre three traps might sound irrelevant in the face of the growing continental scale of the problem, and perhaps they are. However, a mature hornet nest in autumn can have 6,000 individuals, so potentially over two million fewer hornets will be patrolling our local landscape come autumn.
In case anyone is wondering about the number.
What an odd post to make the front page of HN.
Wouldn't some birds love to eat hornets?
Yes, the European honey buzzard would: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_honey_buzzard#Feeding
Good. Too bad they're not in Ireland. The country might lack woodland for them to breed in. Artificial nests perhaps? (I think many countries should invest in biodiversity also, on a strategic level, for multitude of reasons, but resilience to pests is one.)