Ingredients
□ 1¾ cups all-purpose flour
□ ½ cup whole wheat or graham flour
□ 1 tsp baking powder
□ ¼ tsp baking soda
□ ¼ tsp salt
□ ¼ cup (½ stick) butter or margarine, melted
□ ⅓ cup honey
□ 1 tsp vanilla extract
□ 1 egg yolk, lightly beaten
□ ¼ cup nonfat milk
□ 1 (8 oz) package Neufchatel or reduced-fat cream cheese
□ ¼ cup honey
□ 3 cups assorted sliced or whole fresh fruits
□ Toasted coconut or granola
□ Optional honey or chocolate syrup

Crust Directions
Step 1
Preheat oven to 375°F.

Step 2
In a large bowl, combine flours, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Mix well.

Step 3
In a small bowl, mix together melted butter, honey and vanilla. Stir into the flour mixture.

Step 4
Stir in egg yolk and milk.

Step 5
Form into a ball with hands.

Step 6
Place on a lightly greased pizza pan or baking sheet.

Step 7
With floured hands, press dough to form a 12-inch circle.

Step 8
Bake at 375°F for 12 to 15 minutes or until golden brown.

Step 9
Remove from pan. Cool on wire rack.

Topping Directions
In a small bowl, combine Neufchatel cheese and honey. Mix until well blended.

Serving Directions
Step 1
Spread topping onto crust to within ½ inch of edge.

Step 2
Arrange fruit over top.

Step 3
Sprinkle with toasted coconut and drizzle with honey, if desired.

The study found that climate conditions and soil productivity — the ability of soil to support crops based on its physical, chemical and biological properties — were some of the most important factors in estimating honey yields. Credit: Arwin Neil Baichoo/Unsplash. All Rights Reserved.

By Katie Bohn

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Honey yields in the U.S. have been declining since the 1990s, with honey producers and scientists unsure why, but a new study by Penn State researchers has uncovered clues in the mystery of the missing honey.

Using five decades of data from across the U.S., the researchers analyzed the potential factors and mechanisms that might be affecting the number of flowers growing in different regions — and, by extension, the amount of honey produced by honey bees.

The study, recently published in the journal Environmental Research, found that changes in honey yields over time were connected to herbicide application and land use, such as fewer land conservation programs that support pollinators. Annual weather anomalies also contributed to changes in yields.

The data, pulled from several open-source databases including those operated by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) National Agricultural Statistics Service and USDA Farm Service Agency, included such information as average honey yield per honey bee colony, land use, herbicide use, climate, weather anomalies and soil productivity in the continental United States.

Overall, researchers found that climate conditions and soil productivity — the ability of soil to support crops based on its physical, chemical and biological properties — were some of the most important factors in estimating honey yields. States in both warm and cool regions produced higher honey yields when they had productive soils.

The eco-regional soil and climate conditions set the baseline levels of honey production, while changes in land use, herbicide use and weather influenced how much is produced in a given year, the researchers summarized.

Gabriela Quinlan, the lead author on the study and a National Science Foundation (NSF) postdoctoral research fellow in Penn State’s Department of Entomology and Center for Pollinator Research, said she was inspired to conduct the study after attending beekeeper meetings and conferences and repeatedly hearing the same comment: You just can’t make honey like you used to.

According to Quinlan, climate became increasingly tied to honey yields in the data after 1992.

“It’s unclear how climate change will continue to affect honey production, but our findings may help to predict these changes,” Quinlan said. “For example, pollinator resources may decline in the Great Plains as the climate warms and becomes more moderate, while resources may increase in the mid-Atlantic as conditions become hotter.”

Co-author on the paper Christina Grozinger, Publius Vergilius Maro Professor of Entomology and director of the Center for Pollinator Research, said that while scientists previously knew that many factors influence flowering plant abundance and flower production, prior studies were conducted in only one region of the U.S.

“What’s really unique about this study is that we were able to take advantage of 50 years of data from across the continental U.S.,” she said. “This allowed us to really investigate the role of soil, eco-regional climate conditions, annual weather variation, land use and land management practices on the availability of nectar for honey bees and other pollinators.”

One of the biggest stressors to pollinators is a lack of flowers to provide enough pollen and nectar for food, according to the researchers. Because different regions can support different flowering plants depending on climate and soil characteristics, they said there is growing interest in identifying regions and landscapes with enough flowers to make them bee friendly.

“A lot of factors affect honey production, but a main one is the availability of flowers,” she said. “Honey bees are really good foragers, collecting nectar from a variety of flowering plants and turning that nectar into honey. I was curious that if beekeepers are seeing less honey, does that mean there are fewer floral resources available to pollinators overall? And if so, what environmental factors were causing this change?”

For Quinlan, one of the most exciting findings was the importance of soil productivity, which she said is an under-explored factor in analyzing how suitable different landscapes are for pollinators. While many studies have examined the importance of nutrients in the soil, less work has been done on how soil characteristics like temperature, texture, structure — properties that help determine productivity — affect pollinator resources.

The researchers also found that decreases in soybean land and increases in Conservation Reserve Program land, a national conservation program that has been shown to support pollinators, both resulted in positive effects on honey yields.

Herbicide application rates were also important in predicting honey yields, potentially because removing flowering weeds can reduce nutritional sources available to bees.

“Our findings provide valuable insights that can be applied to improve models and design experiments to enable beekeepers to predict honey yields, growers to understand pollination services, and land managers to support plant–pollinator communities and ecosystem services,” Quinlan said.

To learn more about the land use, floral resources and weather in specific areas, visit the Beescape tool on the Center for Pollinator Research website.

David A.W. Miller, associate professor of wildlife population ecology, was also a co-author on the study.

The NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology Program and the USDA National Institute Food and Agriculture’s Pollinator Health Program and Data Science for Food and Agricultural Systems Programs helped support this research.

We are here to share current happenings in the bee industry. Bee Culture gathers and shares articles published by outside sources. For more information about this specific article, please visit the original publish source: Why are bees making less honey? Study reveals clues in five decades of data | Penn State University (psu.edu)

By James Murray

Image from Unsplash

Thunder Bay – Business – Almost everyone loves the taste of honey. In an age where food authenticity is increasingly scrutinized, a lesser-known but significant issue has emerged in the honey industry: honey-laundering. This term refers to the illegal practice of mislabeling the origin of honey or adulterating it with other substances. As consumers, understanding honey-laundering and knowing how to ensure the authenticity of the honey you purchase is crucial.

What is Honey-Laundering?

Honey-laundering primarily involves two deceptive practices:

Mislabeling Origin: Some manufacturers label their honey as being from a particular region or country, often one known for high-quality honey, when it actually originates from somewhere else. This practice is commonly used to circumvent import tariffs or bans from countries with a history of contamination in honey production.

Adulteration: This involves diluting pure honey with other cheaper sweeteners like high-fructose corn syrup, rice syrup, or other sugary substances. Adulterated honey is less expensive to produce but is sold as pure honey, deceiving consumers and undercutting honest producers.

Impact of Honey-Laundering

Honey-laundering not only deceives consumers but also has broader implications:

Economic Impact: It undermines legitimate beekeepers and honey producers who struggle to compete with the lower prices of adulterated products.

Health Risks: Adulterated honey can contain harmful antibiotics or heavy metals, posing health risks to consumers.

Environmental Concerns: Mislabeling origin can mask environmentally harmful production practices in some regions.

How to Ensure You’re Buying Real Honey

Read Labels Carefully: Check for country of origin and ingredient list. Authentic honey should have no other ingredient except honey.

Buy Local: Purchasing from local beekeepers or farmers’ markets can increase the likelihood of getting pure honey. It also supports local agriculture.

Certifications and Tests: Look for certifications like “True Source Certified” which ensure the traceability of honey. Some companies also put QR codes on their products that provide detailed sourcing information.

Price Point: If the price seems too good to be true, it probably is. Producing genuine, pure honey is a labor-intensive process, which is reflected in its cost.

Consistency and Texture: Pure honey tends to crystallize over time, whereas adulterated honey will remain syrupy.

Water Test: Put a drop of honey in water. Pure honey will settle at the bottom, while adulterated honey will start dissolving.

Flame Test: Dip a matchstick in honey and try to light it. If it lights easily, the honey is pure. Adulterated honey will prevent the match from lighting due to moisture from additives.

Trust Your Taste: Pure honey has a complex flavour profile that changes slightly with each batch, reflecting the flowers from which the nectar was harvested.

Conclusion

Honey-laundering is a global issue with significant impacts on consumers, producers, and the environment. By being vigilant and informed, consumers can play a crucial role in combating this practice. Always opt for transparency, traceability, and trustworthiness when it comes to purchasing honey. Remember, choosing authentic honey not only ensures you enjoy a quality product but also supports ethical and sustainable practices in the honey industry.

We are here to share current happenings in the bee industry. Bee Culture gathers and shares articles published by outside sources. For more information about this specific article, please visit the original publish source: NetNewsLedger – Unveiling Honey-Laundering: Ensuring Authenticity in Your Honey Purchase

By Mitch Leslie

Yao honey hunter Seliano Rucunua holds a male honeyguide caught for research in the Niassa Special Reserve in Mozambique. CLAIRE SPOTTISWOODE

When people in the Niassa Special Reserve of northern Mozambique hanker for something sweet, they don’t call DoorDash or Uber Eats. They call a bird. The aptly named honeyguide will lead them to a bee nest so they can harvest the honey. The bird obtains a treat, too—scrumptious wax and bee larvae. A new study suggests this partnership, which occurs in several places in Africa, is even more intricate than scientists thought. People in different regions make unique sounds to summon the birds, and the birds recognize and respond to calls from their local area, researchers report today in Science. The authors say the results suggest humans and honeyguides shape each other’s cultural traditions.

“It’s an elegant study. The results are so clear, and the experimental design is so simple,” says ethologist Julia Hyland Bruno of the New Jersey Institute of Technology, who wasn’t connected to the work.

Scientists have documented just a handful of cases in which humans cooperate with wild animals. For example, in Brazil, Myanmar, and India, people and dolphins work together to catch fish. But the alliance between honey-seeking people and honeyguides in Africa takes collaboration to a higher level. The small, brown-and-white birds are adept at finding bee nests and remembering their locations. “They learn the landscape intimately,” says behavioral ecologist Claire Spottiswoode of the University of Cambridge, a co-author on the new paper. Humans, in turn, chop open the trees where the nests are located and smoke out the furious bees. The two species often split the spoils, but honey hunters sometimes stiff their assistants, destroying the wax so the birds are motivated to look for more nests.

Honeyguides sometimes solicit people to follow them, but honey hunters can also invite the birds to help. The Yao people who live in the Niassa Special Reserve, for instance, make a distinctive “brrrr” sound, followed by a “huh” that rises in pitch.

The sounds people use to draw the birds differ from place to place. Can the birds tell the difference? To find out, Spottiswoode teamed up with anthropologist Brian Wood of the University of California, Los Angeles, who has been studying the Hadza community of northern Tanzania for almost 20 years. The Hadza rely on complex whistles that are, as Wood puts it, “almost like an orchestra of melodies” to notify the birds they are ready to look for honey.

At sites in Tanzania and Mozambique, researchers and honey hunters tramped through the bush playing recordings of the Yao calls, Hadza whistles, or humans yelling their names, which served as a control. In Tanzania, honeyguides were more than three times more likely to hook up with a group playing the Hadza whistles than with one playing the Yao call or the shouts. And in Mozambique, a playback of the Yao call was more than twice as effective as the other two sounds. The researchers ruled out the possibility that the birds opted for a particular sound because it was easier to hear in that environment, determining that the calls and whistles faded equally rapidly in the two locations. The DNA of the birds doesn’t differ from place to place, but the calls can change over relatively short distances, which suggests the honeyguides don’t inherit their preference, Spottiswoode says. A more likely explanation is that “the birds learn to respond to the signals of their local human partners.”

Like humans, birds can have their own cultures, often passed down through their songs. The new findings suggest honeyguides and humans reinforce each other’s traditions. Yao and Hadza honey hunters told the researchers that they stick with the calls they learned from their forebears because changing them reduces the odds of attracting honeyguides. The birds apparently figure out that the call of their area means an opportunity for food, and they are drawn to people making it. But they don’t respond the same way to an unfamiliar call, which discourages honey hunters from innovating. Whether the honeyguides learn to respond to the local call from other honeyguides or on their own is a question the researchers want to investigate.

Yao honey hunters use fire and tools to harvest a bees’ nest in the Niassa Special Reserve in Mozambique. CLAIRE SPOTTISWOODE

“They provide really clear evidence for the interaction between honeyguides and humans and the possibility for learning by the birds,” says behavioral ecologist Mauricio Cantor of Oregon State University, who wasn’t connected to the study. “They’ve done an elegant job of demonstrating that there is cultural variation here,” adds behavioral ecologist Stephen Nowicki of Duke University. Humans cooperate and communicate with domesticated animals all the time, “but this is a wild animal. To see the complexity of communication that can occur—that’s really unusual.” As the authors note, fewer people are hunting for honey because they can now buy sugar. That decline could affect the birds, notes ornithologist John Marzluff of the University of Washington. “If you are a species cooperating with us, you have to be on your game because we change rapidly.”

Humans are making massive changes to the planet and threatening biodiversity, but the birds provide a positive example of an animal that can live alongside people, Wood says. Their “ability to learn opens up possibilities for cooperation and coexistence.”

We are here to share current happenings in the bee industry. Bee Culture gathers and shares articles published by outside sources. For more information about this specific article, please visit the original publish source: Birds that lead people to honey recognize local calls from their human helpers | Science | AAAS

Marinade Ingredients
□ ½ cup honey
□ ½ cup olive oil
□ ⅓ cup soy sauce
□ ⅓ cup lemon juice
□ ¼ cup Worcester sauce
□ ½ tsp salt
□ ½ tsp pepper

Meat Ingredients
□ 2½ to 3 pounds thinly cut beef strips

Seasoning Ingredients
□ ¼ cup of your favorite dry rub seasoning (Holy Voodoo Meat Church was the seasoning I used)
Note: Adjust the amount of seasoning to your preference

Directions
Step 1
Mix the marinade ingredients together in a small bowl.

Step 2
Separate the meat strips and place in a large bowl.

Step 3
Mix the marinade with the beef strips. Cover and
refrigerated for 3 to 24 hours.

Step 4
Take the meat strips out of marinade, separate and lay on a large tray.

Step 5
Sprinkle the seasoning on one side, turn the pieces over and sprinkle seasoning on the other side.

Step 6
Elevate the grates on your smoker grill approximately 1 inch. (I use other extra grates to get the elevation so the meat is not on the actual grill grates.)

Step 7
Place meat on the grates and cook on low for 2½ to 3 hours. Turn halfway through.

Enjoy this great snack with your friends and family over the holidays!

By Erin Negley | LNP / LancasterOnline

A spotted lanternfly creeps on the ground during a baseball game in Pittsburgh in 2021. Keith Srakocic / AP

In the years Matthew Libhart’s raised bees, he’s learned how to care for his hives.

He’s learned you can suggest and nudge honeybees, but you can’t make them do anything.

A few years ago, he learned they can make a new type of honey.

Libhart removed boxes filled with honey from the hives at his Warwick Township home right on time. Usually by July, the bees start to eat what they’ve stored. However, the bees were still making honey, building more comb in crevices, filling it with dark nectar. Libhart put a few empty boxes back.

“They filled them up,” he says. “And I’m like: What is this?”

Later he learned the late-season dark honey comes from Pennsylvania’s least-wanted pest: the spotted lanternfly. Since the bug showed up in Pennsylvania about a decade ago, they’ve killed grapevines and harmed other plants and trees. Bees didn’t get the “kill on sight” memo and the new honey has been one sweet side to spotted lanternflies. New research from honey samples including Libhart’s shows it has medicinal potential as well as a fall flavor for foodies.

“This is just the beginning of this research,” says Robyn Underwood, Penn State Extension apiculture educator.

A pest’s problems

Spotted lanternflies are native to China and have few natural predators in Pennsylvania, where they were spotted in 2014. The ag industry has asked people to stomp, swat and kill to slow the spread. Still, the insects have spread from the ground zero of Berks County throughout Pennsylvania and beyond.

The insects prefer the tree of heaven but will feed on more than 170 plant species, Underwood says.

The feeding can kill grapevines and is especially harmful to hops, kiwi and cucumber plants, according to new research from Penn State. The research also shows they aren’t harmful to hardwood trees like silver maple, weeping willow and river birch.

Yet also troubling is what the insects excrete: “honeydew,” sugary liquid that attracts sooty mold. The mold can stress plants and when covering a deck, for example, isn’t great for quality of life.

A silver lining

Insects, however, don’t mind the honeydew. Ants, fruit flies, butterflies and bees, including honeybees, eat it.

For honeybees, spotted lanternflies reach maturity just when their food sources start to disappear. Libhart was one of the beekeepers who didn’t have to feed his bees in the fall for a few years thanks to the lanternfly honeydew. It’s a silver lining to the pest, he says.

As the lanternfly numbers drop in Lancaster County, so has the free food for the honeybees. This fall, he’s back to feeding nearly all of his hives.

The honey made from the honeydew has been described as earthy and smoky.

Philadelphia Bee Co. made Doom Bloom honey, which it describes as a robust fall honey with a smoky flavor. A Philadelphia baker called it the “epitome of autumn.”

Libhart finds it difficult to describe.

“It’s got a kind of a weird taste that, at least in my experience, not too many people find palatable. I guess it’s kind of an acquired taste,” he says. “It kind of has a smoky, kind of maple-y taste to it, which sounds great, but it is kind of odd when you’re expecting honey.”

Underwood is not a fan but she shares individual sticks for people to sample and give their opinion.

She’s also shared honey with researchers, who have tested the honey. In several labs, they’ve found it out-performs manuka honey, the honey approved by the Food and Drug Administration for wound treatment. The spotted lanternfly honey inhibits the growth of bacteria such as MRSA and E. coli.

“No wonder it tastes like crap,” Underwood joked to a group of beekeepers last week. “It’s medicine.”

She would love for chemists to study the honey further to learn more.

In the meantime, beekeepers in four corners of Pennsylvania are taking weekly honey samples to find lanternfly DNA, led by The Grozinger Lab at Penn State. Honeybees could be the smallest scouts, discovering where the pests move before people notice.

We are here to share current happenings in the bee industry. Bee Culture gathers and shares articles published by outside sources. For more information about this specific article, please visit the original publish source: Spotted lanternflies help make smoky honey. It could be good for you. | 90.5 WESA

By National Honey Board

Why the Food Industry Thrives on Honey Bee Pollination

When someone thinks about honey bees, they usually think about honey. That makes sense as honey bees make this amazing sweetener and flavor. However, honey bees impact our food system in ways beyond making honey. Honey bees are responsible for more than one-third of the foods we eat.

Think about that for a second. On average, honey bees are responsible for every third bite of food you take. They make commercial production of more than 90 different crops possible. Honey bees are responsible for bringing the world guacamole, pumpkin pie and most of our nut-dense food bars. They also ensure our food is flavorful by pollinating cinnamon, garlic, parsley and coriander.

Honey bees are among the most vital pollinators in the world, playing an essential role in maintaining biodiversity and ensuring the reproduction of plants. Their work in pollination supports not only natural ecosystems but also agricultural systems.

The Natural Mechanics of Honey Bee Pollination

Honey bees pollinate flowering crops, plants, trees, shrubs and weeds through their quest for food. When bees forage for food, they are looking for two things:

• Nectar = carbohydrates
• Pollen = protein

Fortunately for us and honey bees, both of these dietary needs are found on flowers. As bees move from flower to flower collecting nectar and pollen, they inadvertently transfer pollen from the male part of one flower (the anther) to the female part (the stigma) of another. In natural ecosystems, honey bee pollination ensures the reproduction of many flowering plants, promoting biodiversity.

Honey bees make such effective pollinators because they are equipped with hairy bodies and pollen baskets (corbicula) on their hind legs, which allows them to effectively collect and transfer pollen. They can be safely managed and moved in large numbers from crop to crop by beekeepers.

The Impact of Honey Bees on the Food Industry

Check out this ingredient list from a popular food bar:

• Oats
• Almonds – Require honey bee pollination
• Honey – Made by honey bees
• Almond butter – Require honey bee pollination
• Tapioca fiber
• Dried apples – Require honey bee pollination
• Egg whites
• Cinnamon – Require honey bee pollination
• Vanilla extract – Benefit from honey bee pollination
• Sea salt

Without honey bees, we don’t have this product or many just like it. It’s easy to see and understand the impact of honey bee pollination on our food supply for yourself. Print out this list of honey bee pollinated foods, and cross-reference it with the raw ingredients you use.

Honey bees help the food industry thrive, so it’s important for food and beverage manufacturers to support the honey industry. By using honey in product formulations, manufacturers can help beekeepers ensure their hives are healthy and crops are pollinated.

We are here to share current happenings in the bee industry. Bee Culture gathers and shares articles published by outside sources. For more information about this specific article, please visit the original publish source: National Honey Board- good for the planet | Food Dive

Sometimes it is worthwhile to look at the details, to study aspects that seem to be uninteresting or were previously ignored, and see noteworthy phenomena come to light.

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF KONSTANZ

“Whenever there is something that people say is uninteresting, or that has been skipped over, then I think those are the most useful and interesting places to go, simply because you might be the first person to actually look and see.” This is the working motto of Michael L. Smith, an affiliate member of the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior and the Cluster of Excellence CASCB and currently a professor at Auburn University. To enable such discovery, he encouraged Louisa Neubauer, a bachelor’s student at that time, to take a closer look at drones, the male reproductive members of honey bee colonies. The results were so surprising that they were recently published in the journal Animal Behaviour.

Drones play a crucial role in the reproductive success of the colony. The males leave the hive only for the mating flights, in which the drones try to mate with a virgin queen. Besides that, the drones spend their lives in the hive as part of the colony. Therefore, they are thought of as ‘lazy and dull’. “Nevertheless, how drones behave in the hive and how they integrate with the rest of the colony remains unclear”, says Louisa Neubauer who is now a doctoral candidate at the University of Bern.

“We were already tagging and tracking the workers, so it seemed like an easy and obvious extension to tag and track some of the drones”, says Smith. So, individually marked drones were introduced to a colony living in a glass covered observation hive. Some drones got little paper tags containing an individual code as well as a code for the orientation on the thorax. With the BeesBook, a tracking system developed by Tim Landgraf’s group at the Free University of Berlin, Neubauer could follow the movement and position of each individually marked drone throughout their life by decoding the tags. The results were a real surprise: “Frome time to time, these ‘lazy’ drones are temporarily the most active individuals in the entire colony!” says Neubauer.

Drones have synchronized hyperactivity periods
For Neubauer, it was exciting to see that, next to the described laziness or immobility of drones, the drones have synchronized hyperactivity periods, in which they are the fastest individuals in the colony. The research team found that this hyperactivity period coincides with the flight period of drones, and the periods and synchronization are influenced by both external factors and the exchange of social information. “Overall, these findings are amazing, since they show how drones adapt their behaviour to their task by limiting their energy consumption to a certain activity window”, says Neubauer.

So far, it was known to researchers that drones base the timing of their mating flights on the weather. “But, looking more precisely inside the colony, the start and end times of their hyperactive periods are more synchronized than we would expect by cueing on the weather alone”, says Jacob Davidson, postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior and affiliate member of the CASCB. “This suggests that the drones communicate to make a synchronized collective decision when to leave the nest.” How exactly this communication between the drones takes place is a topic for future research.

Saving energy for the mating flights
“The results of this study demonstrate that drones adapt their in-hive behaviour to their task as male gametes of the colony”, summarizes Louisa Neubauer. “First of all, the drones restrict their energy consumption by limiting their activity to a certain period of the day matching the time of mating flights while staying relatively immobile the rest of the day. Second, the drones are located in the nest as required for their developmental stage, but without disturbing the work of other individuals.” The results highlight that drones adapt to their task and, even with being lazy, they contribute to the honeybee colony by reducing their own energy use. This also shows that drones integrate into the honeybee colony and adapt their behaviour to maximize the colony’s success.

Key facts

• Researchers from the Cluster of Excellence Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour (CASCB) at the University of Konstanz and the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior showed that male honey bees (drones), long considered lazy, are (at times) the most active members of the colony.
• Publication: Louisa C. Neubauer, Jacob D. Davidson, Benjamin Wild, David M. Dormagen, Tim Landgraf, Iain D. Couzin, Michael L. Smith: Honey bee drones are synchronously hyperactive inside the nest, Animal Behaviour, Volume 203, 2023, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2023.05.018

• Louisa Neubauer, Jacob Davidson, and Michael L Smith are researchers from the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior and the CASCB.

We are here to share current happenings in the bee industry. Bee Culture gathers and shares articles published by outside sources. For more information about this specific article, please visit the original publish source:  Not lazy at all: Honey bee drones | EurekAlert!

The giant insects that can devour more than 60 bees a day, have killed thousands of bees at Peter Down’s apiary in Kent

By

Chantal Weller

Alan Smith

Huge Asian hornets have nearly wiped out a beekeeper’s business after tearing through his hives.

The giant insects that can devour more than 60 bees a day, have killed thousands of bees at Peter Down’s apiary in Kent. Out of 20 hives, only four or five remain and those bees are so stressed that they cannot produce any honey.

It comes as 42 nests have been found in the UK – almost all in Kent – this season, dwarfing figures for previous years. Peter is calling on the government to do more to tackle the outbreak, which experts warn could ultimately threaten the nation’s food supply.

The 40-year-old, from New Romney, said he has watched in horror as his bees are “depleting” before his eyes – leaving him unable to sell any honey. He said: “We were pushing more than 20 hives coming into the season, but have lost between 14 and 16. I feel like I’ve lost everything.

“I have noticed a lot more hawking, hovering at the entrance to hives, happening and the Asian hornets are now picking on one of my stronger hives, so that may deplete in the next few days.”

Peter and his fellow beekeeper at the site, Simon Spratley, have set up traps at the apiary and along the cliff top. Last Wednesday, six yellow-legged Asian hornets were caught across three traps.

But Peter says there should not have been any, as the National Bee Unit (NBU) had destroyed three nests just days earlier. He said: “We should not be seeing any signs of Asian hornets five days later. We clearly have Asian hornets and have seen a few mating flights.

“On an average trap, we had been finding 12 to 14 hornets, which is high numbers given we check them every 24 to 48 hours.” Peter usually makes up to 600 jars of honey by this time of year but the invasion has killed off production.

He added: “Our bees are so stressed that they are not producing the honey they need to. They are also not producing the stores they need to survive the winter let alone give us any to sell.” Ten people in Jersey have needed urgent medical treatment this summer after being stung by Asian hornets.

Peter carries an Epipen because he can have a bad allergic reaction to wasp stings. But the father-of-five loves beekeeping because it helps him “massively” with his mental health – making the attacks by the hornets even more upsetting. He continued: “To have 20-odd hives go down to what I have now, and physically watching Asian hornets coming in and hawking my bees, is not what I want to see.”

Peter is one of many beekeepers who are members of Asian Hornet Action Teams (AHATs). He is urging the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and NBU to work together more with AHATs to target hornet nests quicker.

He said: “I think they still do not want to admit that we have an invasion of them. Last year we had two nests destroyed. This year we have 42 and counting across 36 locations. Our numbers are showing we are getting a massive influx.”

The Asian hornet, which is about twice the size of a wasp and can eat more than 60 bees in a day, is distinguished by its yellow legs.

Originating from China, in the last few years the insects have spread across Continental Europe and are now a resident pest in France, Spain, Belgium, and Jersey, where hundreds of nests have created a huge problem. Five people in France have died after being stung.

In Kent the hornets are most predominant in coastal areas, including Whitstable but they have also been confirmed inland at Canterbury, Ashford and Maidstone and even as far as Tunbridge Wells and Rochester.

Ecologist Roger Simpson said: “They are a predator on all pollinators. So this isn’t simply a niche problem for bee-keepers. Yes Asian hornets predate on honey bees, but they predate on all our native pollinators, so unchecked they will threaten our food supply and lead to food shortages and increased prices.

“This is the season when the nest will be throwing out virgin queens, who after they have mated will hibernate over winter and then set up new nests next spring. So the problem is the hornet population could take off exponentially. That is why it is really important to identify the hornet nests now.” Mr Simpson warned: “If we don’t get a handle on this problem, there will be significant impact on both ecology and food in the UK.”

A spokesperson for the British Beekeeping Association (BBKA) said: “The sharp increase in Asian/yellow-legged hornets in England is a serious concern. The national contingency plan is currently one of eradication. The BBKA has established a national network of Asian Hornet Teams to help identify and raise awareness amongst the public of this invasive species, set monitoring stations and assist the NBU on request.”

An Animal Plant Health Agency (APHA) spokesperson from Defra added: “We are committed to working closely with stakeholders who have been extremely helpful in increasing vigilance and awareness of Asian hornets.

“Due to several issues including health and safety, we are unable to bring volunteers into the official response and under our supervision. However, we will continue to work with them in triaging unconfirmed sightings and conducting follow-up checks once official activity is completed, which is a vital part of our efforts to eradicate Asian hornets.”

We are here to share current happenings in the bee industry. Bee Culture gathers and shares articles published by outside sources. For more information about this specific article, please visit the original publish source: https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/huge-asian-hornets-nearly-wipe-30954903

Ingredients
□ 2½ cups self-rising cornmeal
□ ½ tsp salt
□ ¼ cup vegetable oil
□ ½ cup creamed corn
□ 1⅓ cup buttermilk
□ ¼ cup honey
□ 1 egg
□ 1 tbsp vegetable oil (for skillet)
□ Honey and Butter for serving

Zankopedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Directions
Step 1
Preheat oven to 450°F.

Step 2
Swirl the 1 tbsp vegetable oil in a cast iron skillet. Place in the over to heat. Watch that it doesn’t start to smoke!

Step 3
Mix the cornmeal and salt in a large bowl.

Step 4
In a second bowl, combine the vegetable oil, creamed corn, buttermilk, honey and egg.

Step 5
Stir the wet ingredients with the dry until just combined. Batter will be lumpy, don’t over mix!

Step 6
Open the oven and drop a tsp of batter into the hot skillet to make sure it is heated enough to sizzle.

Step 7
Once heated enough, carefully pour the batter into the skillet.

Step 8
Bake for 20-25 minutes until set and golden brown.

Step 9
Cut into slices and serve with additional honey and butter.

Tip
Add 4 pieces of chopped bacon to the batter for a special treat!

On a bright summer day, staff joined the NATO beekeeper at the honey harvesting workshop at Alliance Headquarters in Brussels on Thursday (10 August 2023). Starting with two hives in 2020, the NATO apiary currently contains four beehives due to the success of honey production. This year’s yield is expected to reach around 50 kilograms.

The NATO beekeeper harvests honey from the hives twice a year. Depending on weather conditions, one hive can produce up to 25 kilograms of honey. A significant portion of honey is left for the bees to use for survival during the winter months. Around 350 jars of NATO honey were sold at the NATO Charity Bazaar in November 2022, and Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg gifted jars of NATO honey to ambassadors in the North Atlantic Council last December.

The NATO bee hives are part of a wider ‘greening’ initiative at NATO Headquarters. The honey bees play a vital role in the local ecosystem as they pollinate surrounding trees, crops and plants within a 3 kilometre range. This includes the wildflower meadow at NATO headquarters, with a mix of indigenous plants and flowers including poppies and corn flowers, which were specifically chosen to encourage bees, butterflies and birds. Workshops like this aim to raise awareness about the importance of supporting biodiversity and preserving natural habitats under the threat of climate change.

We are here to share current happenings in the bee industry. Bee Culture gathers and shares articles published by outside sources. For more information about this specific article, please visit the original publish source: NATO – News: NATO bees are busy at bi-annual honey harvest, 10-Aug.-2023

Cookie Ingredients
□ 2½ cups + 4 tablespoons all-purpose flour
□ ⅔ cup corn starch
□ 1 teaspoon salt
□ ½ cup + 2 tablespoons brown sugar
□ 2 teaspoon cinnamon
□ 1 cup cold butter (cut into small pieces)
□ 2 large eggs
□ 4 tablespoons honey
□ 2 tablespoons milk

Cookie Directions
Step 1
In a large bowl combine flour, corn starch, baking powder, salt, brown sugar and cinnamon. Mix well.

Step 2
Add the pieces of butter and combine until mixed into course combs.

Step 3
Add honey, eggs and milk. Mix with spoon until you can knead with your hands.

Step 4
Once you can form a smooth ball of dough, wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate 3 hours.

Step 5
Pre-heat over to 350°F. Line cookie sheets with parchment paper.

Step 6
On a floured, flat surface, roll dough into ¼-inch thickness and but cookies out with cookie cutter(s). I made on in the shape of a bee frame!

Step 7
Place on cookie sheets and back for 10 minutes.

Step 8
Let cool completely then frost.

Icing Ingredients
□ 3 to 3½ cups powdered sugar depending on whether or not you add food coloring
□ 2 teaspoon vanilla
□ 4 tablespoons melted butter
□ 1 teaspoon honey
□ 3 to 5 tablespoons milk
□ Optional: for the color of honey use 9 drops yellow food coloring, 1 drop red food coloring and 1 drop blue food coloring

Icing Directions
Step 1
Combine powdered sugar, vanilla, butter, honey and milk until smooth.

Step 2
Then add food coloring. Gel food coloring works best.

Step 3
Ice cookies then immediately lay out on wax paper or parchment paper to let icing set.

Step 4
Layer cookies between parchment paper in air tight container for storage.

Step 5
Keep refrigerated and enjoy!

ProtectaBEE won a silver medal from the World Beekeeping Awards last month

Kate Bueckert · CBC News ·

ProtectaBEE is a new beehive entrance that can help protect honeybees from pests and disease. It recently won silver from the World Beekeeping Awards at the 48th Apimondia International Apicultural Congress in Chile in September. It was created by Best For Bees and researchers at the University of Guelph. Best For Bees founder Erica Shelley talks about the invention and how it works.

A new device created by Ontario researchers is like adding a new, safe front porch to honeybee hives.

ProtectaBEE is a honeybee hive entrance that can help protect the pollinators from pests and diseases.

In recent years, beekeepers across the country have faced a number of challenges when it comes to maintaining their bee hives, including changing climate and parasites and in particular varroa mites. The mites feed on honeybees and can spread viruses in hives.

This past spring, beekeepers across the country reported large colony losses. Rod Scarlett, executive director of the Canadian Honey Council, told CBC News in April Alberta, Manitoba and Ontario honey producers lost an average of 40 to 45 per cent of their bees earlier this year while losses were as high as 60 per cent in Quebec.

It’s a problem Erica Shelley wanted to address, She’s the founder of Best For Bees, a research and development company for beekeepers based in Kitchener. She collaborated with University of Guelph researcher Peter Kevan on ProtectaBEE.

The ProtectaBEE device is red and has nozzles for the entrance and exit to the hive.

The hive entrance was first created for bee vectoring — a process developed by Kevan and other Guelph researchers where bees walk through a biocontrol powder, which they shake off onto crops while getting pollen. The biocontrol powder protects crops and deals with the parasitic varroa mite.

“That’s still in development, it’s a few years out,” Shelley said.

But in testing the product, Shelley said she found other benefits.

“The red colour actually is not easily seen by other insects,” she said.

“It actually is a protection against wasps and hornets and yellow jackets and even robbing bees from other hives,” Shelley said, adding it also protects against skunks and mice.

Silver medal at global conference

ProtectaBEE has now been recognized on a world stage. The device won a silver medal from the World Beekeeping Awards, which were handed out at the Apimondia International Apicultural Congress in Chile last month.

Shelley says there were about 20 entries from developers and inventors from around the world, large machines down to smaller innovative ideas.

“To have the world’s experts look at your thing that you’ve invented and they’ve seen so many inventions come through over the years and then to award a medal to it, it was just that kind of honour,” she said.

Erica Shelley is the founder of Best for Bees, based in Kitchener. She worked with University of Guelph researcher Peter Kevan to develop ProtectaBEE, a hive entrance for honeybees. She’s wearing the silver medal ProtectaBEE won at the World Beekeeping Awards in September. (Kate Bueckert/CBC)

“It also means we’re on the right track and what we’re working on is something that has meaning and is obviously worthwhile.”

Enid Brown, a director with the World Bee Awards, explained the judges for the awards are all practical beekeepers and they “study all the exhibits and look to see how practical they are and if the invention would be suitable to use.”

“They are aware of other products on the market and take into consideration whether this is a true invention or something that has been altered,” Brown told CBC News in an email.

Kevan says Shelley took his previous research and built upon it to create ProtectaBEE and he says it’s a smart invention because it’s simple and quick to use.

Now, the goal will be to get more people to use it, he said.

“It certainly would be useful, I think, to the commercial side of beekeeping, honey production and honey bee protection,” he told CBC News. “It’s got to be accepted by the industry and used by the industry of course and will catch on.”

Kevan said he’d also encourage government agencies and commercial agricultural producers not to overlook ProtectaBEE as a viable way to maintain healthy bees. He says it’s been his experience that these groups have not really recognized Canadian-led research into bee health, even though he believes they’re a leader in the area.

“It’s been very much sort of a ho hum response from government funding agencies and the ho hum response from the bigger established commercial entities,” he said.

Bee data project

While at the conference, Shelley and Best For Bees also launched a Big Bee data movement. She says she hopes it’s a way to collect data from beekeepers around the world to watch for trends.

“It might be pollution, it might be diversity, it might be pests, it might be forage that’s available and that, with using machine-learning, we can actually answer these big questions quickly,” Shelley said.

“So we’re trying to have this movement … so that beekeepers can help beekeepers to solve the world’s bee crisis.”

Shelley says it’s very personal for her to protect bees.

“Bees are very important for our environment and also our food security,” she said. “Our ability to eat good food goes hand-in-hand with their survival.”

We are here to share current happenings in the bee industry. Bee Culture gathers and shares articles published by outside sources. For more information about this specific article, please visit the original publish source: Bees can now get their hives renovated — and it could save their lives | CBC News

BY CHRIS SLAY

A quart of very fresh wildflower honey will taste like a sunny summer day all year long.

During the honey flow period, many established colonies made more honey than they need. In this four-part series, we’ll explore exactly what honey is, what differentiates some honey from others, traditional and modern medical uses, and the rich history humans have with honey as a food source. We’ll also disprove some common misconceptions about honey. Welcome back to the fascinating life cycle of the honey bee.

Honey begins as nectar from flowers. Worker bees collect nectar and pollen for food. The nectar that isn’t immediately consumed is stored in bees’ honey bellies and taken back to the hive. Honey bees’ salivary enzymes and proteins break down the nectar’s complex sucrose and starches into simple, more quickly digested sugars — glucose and fructose.

Because wild yeasts and bacteria can easily live on nectar, robbing its nutrients, honey bees reduce the nectar’s water content in two astonishing ways. First, they repeatedly regurgitate the nectar into their mandibles to create bubbles that provide a large surface area for water to evaporate. Second, after storing the partially dehydrated solution in open wax cells, groups of workers will constantly fan their wings, producing heat and airflow to reduce the water content even further. After the solution lowers to a water content of 18% to 15.5%, bees cap the cells with wax.

The nectar is now beyond the saturation point of water. This means there is far more sugar dissolved in what little water remains than ever could be dissolved in an equivalent volume of water.

For example, it’s impossible to dissolve one cup of sugar in seven teaspoons of water. This is honey.

Honey’s supersaturation of sugar is incredibly stable on molecular and chemical levels. Yeasts and bacteria are deterred from living on honey while in the capped cells, which ensures a very fresh and untainted food source.

The type of honey a colony produces depends entirely on the nectar’s primary source. Wildflower, the most abundant type of honey, is a combination of all of the thousands of different flowers from which the bees forage. Wildflower honey is typically light to dark amber in color and can have a very complex, multi-faceted taste. Other local nectar sources, such as basswood, tulip poplar, and sourwood trees, produce a much lighter-tasting, grassy-golden honey. Regardless of what the label says, no one knows what other flowers’ nectars are present without microscopically identifying the unique pollen cells in honey. Bees don’t discriminate.

At retail, honey is offered in many forms, but it’s either raw or processed. Most commercially produced honey is pasteurized, which ensures bacterial decontamination that may occur after uncapping the cells for extraction and the packaging process. Raising the temperature of honey above 104F also diminishes many of the unique qualities of honey. If you’ve ever had milk fresh from the cow, you understand. Commercial honey may also contain additives like high-fructose corn syrup or artificial coloring.

We are here to share current happenings in the bee industry. Bee Culture gathers and shares articles published by outside sources. For more information about this specific article, please visit the original publish source: All about honey – part 1 | Community News | thetomahawk.com

The Yellow-legged Hornet, Vespa velutina, has been discovered in the state of Georgia! This social wasp, native to Asia, preys extensively on honey bees and other pollinators. Its arrival in North America, while not wholly unexpected, is a cause for alarm for beekeepers and agriculture in general. What is this wasp? Why is it a concern? What can we do to control it? And how concerned should we be at this time?

Figure 1. Yellow-legged Hornet, Vespa velutina, at rest. Photo taken in France, courtesy of Patrick Le Mao

Figure 1. A Yellow-legged Hornet hovers in front of a hive, awaiting incoming forager bees. Photos taken in France, courtesy of Quentin Rome / Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle, Paris, France.

V. velutina is a large wasp, approximately 0.7–1.0 inch (1.7–2.5 cm) in length and with distinctive yellow legs (Fig. 1). It is a social insect, with colonies composed of numerous workers and a slightly larger queen (Pérez-de-Heredia et al., 2017). The species has been studied extensively, both within its native range and in the regions of western Europe, South Korea and Japan it has invaded. Its colonies, founded by a single mated queen, become more populous as Summer progresses. By late Summer, its large, round papery nests, usually concealed by leaves in tree-tops, contain hundreds of worker hornets. To feed their larvae, they capture a wide variety of insects, with the Western Honey Bee (Apis mellifera) being a favored prey species, in part because stationary honey bee colonies provide food consistently for weeks on end (Fig. 1; Roy, 2023). Laurino et al. (2020) provided a review of the biology of the species and its invasion of Europe, where programs to control the species cost millions of dollars annually.

Figure 2. Distribution of V. veluntina (a) in Asia where it occurs naturally and has been introduced to South Korea and Japan, and (b) in Europe where it has been introduced. The red dot indicates where the first hornets were discovered in 2004. (Maps from (a) iNaturalist.org and (b) INPN (2023), used with permission of Quentin Rome / MNHN

Vespa velutina naturally inhabits a region that extends from northern China south through Indonesia and Southeast Asia, and westward along the foothills of the Himalayas to Afghanistan (Fig. 2a). Over that range, it occurs in 13 different color forms (formerly referred to as subspecies). It is likely that the hornets in Georgia are of the northern mainland form, V. velutina nigrothorax, that has also invaded Europe (Fig. 2b) and northeastern Asia. V. v. nigrothorax has often been inappropriately referred to in much of the literature written about it as the “Asian hornet”, a misnomer given that all 22 species of hornets inhabit some part of Asia!

The life cycle of the Yellow-legged Hornet is generally the same as that of all species of hornets (i.e., wasps in the genus Vespa) in temperate climates (Laurino et al., 2020). A mated queen emerges from her wintering site and becomes active in Spring when the weather becomes suitable. After a period of feeding on floral nectar and tree sap, followed by dispersal estimated to exceed 30 miles (50 km) in some instances, she individually constructs a small comb enclosed within a papery envelope made from plant fibers she chews and mixes with her saliva. The queen then rears the first generation of hornets by herself in an “embryo nest.” When those first workers have completed their development and emerge as adults, they take over most colony activities (nest construction, brood care, foraging and colony defense) while the queen continues to lay most, if not all, eggs. Towards Fall, the colony rears new queens and males. Those new queens mate with males, search for a wintering site that is usually in soil, leaf litter or rotten wood, and become quiescent for several months while temperatures are too cool for activity. It is while they are in Winter diapause that the queens can be accidentally transported long distances as stowaways among cargo on ships and, less frequently, on planes. This is almost certainly how Yellow-legged Hornets arrived in Georgia: the sites where the first individuals were discovered are within 12 miles of the Port of Savannah, one of the largest shipping ports in North America that receives cargo from everywhere in the world.

One important difference between the Yellow-legged Hornet and other species is the relatively large number of males with which young queens mate. The majority of hornet species that have been studied, mate with one or sometimes two males. In contrast, V. velutina queens mate with three males on average (range from one to 5+). The invasion of Europe by this species is believed to have originated from a single queen, mated with four males, that was accidentally imported to southwestern France (Fig. 2b). The added genetic variability provided by mating with several males has undoubtedly contributed to its successful invasions (reviewed by Otis et al., 2023).

Vespa velutina colonies can become very large. Quentin Rome and his colleagues (2015) collected nests in southwestern France from June to November and quantified their populations of immature and adult hornets. The colonies, generally initiated in March, had an average of 440 worker hornets by late October and early November. Some of those nests remained very small, but the most populous colony had 1,740 workers (News reports that colonies may contain 6,000 or more workers are erroneous). Mature colonies in Fall contained an average of 190 new queens (Rome et al., 2015), but because young queens only remain in their nest for about two weeks, that number must represent only a portion of all queens reared. I estimate that the average number reared is approximately 300–400 per colony. The greatest number of new queens collected inside one single nest was 463.

In an odd quirk of biology, hornet larvae serve as reservoirs of food within their colony. Larvae convert the proteins in chewed-up insect prey collected by worker hornets into amino-acid rich sugars. They then feed those secretions to young queens, resulting in them increasing in weight by 20–40% within one to two weeks of emergence as adults due to deposition of fat that fuels their survival during several months of Winter diapause. Young males also require the nutrients provided by larvae in order to mature sexually. Because hornets do not store honey in their nests, the sugary secretions from larvae also sustain their colonies during periods of inclement weather when foraging is not possible (reviewed by Otis et al. 2023).

How does the Yellow-legged Hornet affect honey bees and other pollinators?
The greatest concern related to the establishment of Yellow-legged Hornets in North America is their effects on honey bees and other pollinators. These hornets capture a wide variety of flying insects, a high percentage of which are pollinators, to feed to their larvae. Honey bees in particular are heavily preyed upon. Hornets hover near a hive entrance, facing outwards, so they can pick off incoming foragers (Fig. 1). Once a hive has been located, a hornet can return repeatedly to prey upon the essentially defenseless honey bees. Dr. Yves Le Conte, former head of the French honey bee research unit in Avignon, told me that by late Summer, when honey bees colonies should “prepare good Winter bees and collect honey for Winter survival, the hornets put pressure on the bees.” Hornets seem to focus on weaker colonies and in some cases, once they have killed most of the bees in a hive, they may enter and eat both the brood and the honey. In addition to the constant attrition of foraging bees, the presence of multiple hornets at the entrance of a colony causes “foraging paralysis” in extreme cases, flight activity is completely suppressed. The reduced foraging results in low honey stores and Winter starvation, with losses of 30–50% often reported (Yves Le Conte, pers. comm.; Requier et al., 2019). This hornet is a very significant threat to honey bees!

What has happened in Georgia in 2023?
From the information I have been able to obtain, Yellow-legged Hornets were first observed on or before August 1st by Sarah Beth Waller (personal communication), the beekeeper at the Savannah Bee Company on the eastern edge of Savannah where they were feeding on fallen pears. She posted a photo to iNaturalist on August 7th that yielded a tentative identification of the hornet as Vespa velutina (iNaturalist, 2023). Also in early August, a beekeeper somewhere in Savannah (at a date and location that have yet to be revealed by the Georgia Department of Agriculture) collected two hornets as they visited his hives. They were identified first by a University of Georgia entomologist and subsequently confirmed by the USDA on August 9th (GDA, 2023a). Thanks to news reports on August 15th about this discovery, a homeowner in the vicinity of the Savannah Bee Company reported a large nest 75 feet up in a pine tree. That nest, destroyed on the evening of August 23rd, proved to be exceptionally large (GDA 2023a, b). Keith Delaplane (University of Georgia) informed me that hornet traps of an unknown type have been deployed by the GDA from Port Wentworth to the mouth of the Savannah River, a distance of 18 miles. One person I interviewed was of the understanding that the first two locations where the hornets were observed are approximately eight miles apart, which, if true, would suggest that additional colonies may be present (hornets usually forage within a mile of their nest). Hornets have been sent for genetic analysis to determine if they originated in Europe or Asia. The situation in Savannah is fluid and changing rapidly. By the time this article is published, much more will be known and divulged. It may take a year or more before we know whether this incipient infestation has been eradicated.

What can be done to reduce the threat posed by the Yellow-legged Hornet?
Traps of many designs have been developed and tested in Europe. They have proven moderately effective for monitoring the presence of the hornet, but do not catch sufficient hornets to appreciably affect established colonies. Moreover, they have been criticized for their extensive by-catch of non-target insects. If the traps that have been deployed in Georgia capture additional hornets, finding and destroying their nests before new queens disperse into the environment presents the greatest probability of successful eradication. As an example, in spite of repeated discovery of Yellow-legged Hornet colonies in southern England, coordinated efforts of agricultural personnel, beekeepers and scientists have so far been successful at preventing the wasp’s establishment in the United Kingdom (Jones et al., 2020). On the Mediterranean island of Mallorca, the combination of Spring trapping of gynes before they establish nests, baiting for foragers, and triangulating and destroying colonies before they produce new queens, eliminated the initial infestation. There have been some successes in using very light-weight radio transmitters to track Vespa hornets to their nests (Kennedy et al., 2018; Looney et al. 2023). After a few years, however, once a population of hornets has become established, the proportion of nests that can be found and destroyed has proven in several European countries, to be insufficient to control the invasion.

Monitoring by state departments of agriculture (e.g., see the online form set up for reporting in Georgia; GDA 2023a) or through community-scientist platforms such as iNaturalist can provide accurate reporting of exotic hornets and other pests. Beekeepers can play a huge role in early detection of non-native hornets because several species that have the potential to become established in North America prey extensively on honey bees. Any wasp that seems unusual can be photographed or caught in a jar, then compared with similar species (USDA-APHIS, 2023). It should be reported if you suspect it is V. velutina or another non-native species.

Figure 3. Regions of North America with climate well suited to Yellow-legged Hornet survival. Other regions with lower climate suitability not shown. Adapted from Villemany et al. (2011).

Where is the Yellow-legged Hornet likely to survive in North America?
GIS technology coupled with climate data for localities throughout the world that are available online have revolutionized our ability to predict potential distributions of species outside of their native ranges. In the case of the Yellow-legged Hornet, climate variables from where the species has been documented in Asia as well as in its introduced range in France, were analyzed along with climate data for sites throughout the rest of the world. A map showing the probability of suitable climate for hornet survival was created (Villemant et al., 2011). I superimposed the North American portion of that map onto a map of the United States, then modified it to show the approximate regions in North America where Vespa velutina would almost certainly be able to survive and reproduce (Fig. 3).

A large area of southeastern USA is predicted to have climate suitable for V. velutina. That region extends from the southern tip of Texas north into Oklahoma, then eastwards to somewhere between Baltimore and New York (Fig. 3.). Hornet survival may even be possible as far north as Boston and southern Ontario (Villemant et al., 2011). On the west coast, there is a zone in the rain shadow of the coastal mountains, from Vancouver, Canada, south into California, that seems prone to invasion. The hornet is likely to do better where the minimum temperature in Winter is not too cold, relative humidity is fairly high and the maximum temperature in Summer is not too hot.

Figure 4. The Northern Japanese Hornet, Vespa mandarinia, a species that invaded the Pacific Northwest in 2019. Photo taken by Aline Horikawa near Kyoto, Japan, and used with her permission.

What about other exotic species of hornets?
Who can forget the “invasion by murder hornets” in 2019–2021? The Northern Giant Hornet (formerly known as the Asian Giant Hornet), Vespa mandarinia, is a huge social hornet (Fig. 4; also, refer to the image within YLH lookalikes” in USDA-APHIS, 2023) that is infamous for its ability to rapidly slaughter entire colonies of Apis mellifera. Its discovery in Fall of 2019 led to an extensive monitoring and eradication effort that is on-going in Washington state and British Columbia. Following a peak of 35 sightings and specimens in 2020, there were only 10 reports in 2021 (Looney et al., 2023). Since then, there have been no Northern Giant Hornets detected in North America, and there is optimism that the introduction of this species has failed. It is not clear what combination of factors is responsible for the decline in its population: relatively unsuitable climate, low genetic diversity, destruction of nests (one in British Columbia, four in Washington state; Looney et al. 2023) or other factors. It is known that relatively few species that reach foreign lands are successful in establishing permanent populations. We may simply have gotten lucky with the recent Northern Giant Hornet introduction.

Several groups of researchers have modeled the potential distribution of V. mandarinia. All of them yielded a strong probability of it surviving in the Pacific Northwest where it was initially discovered as well as a large region of eastern North America; however, these models fail to agree on the regions in the east that are most prone to invasion. Because this species focuses its predation in late Summer and Fall on social insects, including honey bees, beekeepers are again the group most likely to encounter it. If you see any wasp attacking and killing honey bees, you should report it immediately.

Figure 5. The Oriental Hornet, Vespa orientalis, a demonstrated invader in northern Italy, southern France, Sardinia, southern Spain, eastern Europe and Chile. Photo taken by Nicola Addelfio near Palermo, Sicily, Italy, and used with her permission.

The Oriental Hornet (Vespa orientalis: Fig 5.), naturally inhabits the Mediterranean, Middle Eastern and western Asian countries and is the only hornet species adapted to hot, arid climates. This striking reddish brown hornet is an agricultural pest that attacks honey bee colonies and damages fleshy fruits such as grapes. It has already been detected in at least 10 countries outside of its native range (reviewed by Otis et al., 2023), and has successfully colonized southern Spain and Chile. Young queens often Winter in groups (Eran Levin, pers. comm.), a behavior which may have helped it to overcome genetic bottlenecks. Species distribution modeling suggests it has a high probability of successfully colonizing the Gulf Coast region of the United States as well as central California.

I would be remiss not to mention the European Hornet, also a large wasp that could be mistaken for one of the other species mentioned (USDA-APHIS, 2023). It was accidentally introduced to New York City nearly 180 years ago and has become relatively common in much of Eastern North America, but because it rarely captures honey bees and has relatively small colonies, it has not proven to be a concern for beekeeping.

Conclusion
Several hornet species cause extensive damage to honey bee colonies in other parts of the world. Unlike Varroa mites and small hive beetles, hornets do not inhabit bee colonies and would be very unlikely to be transported with hives when they are moved for pollination. However, they do have the potential to arrive at any port and subsequently be transported by trucks and trains anywhere in North America! The establishment of any of the exotic hornets discussed before would cause extensive disruption to beekeeping due to their predation on bees and secondary effects on Winter colony survival. The propensity of these hornets to attack honey bees makes beekeepers the most likely people to encounter them, as demonstrated recently with the detection of the Yellow-legged Hornet in Georgia. Readers are encouraged to learn how to identify them: review the figures in this article and “lookalikes” in USDA-APHIS (2023). Stay vigilant—and let’s hope that we remain “hornet-free” for many years to come.

Acknowledgments
I am indebted to Lien T.P. Nguyen of Vietnam and Heather Mattila of Wellesley College, MA, my hornet research collaborators, for the knowledge and experiences they have shared with me over the past decade. Staff at the University of Georgia, K. Cecelia Sequira of USDA-APHIS, and Sarah Beth Waller shared important information about the Yellow-legged Hornet detection in Georgia up until 27 August, 2023. I must also recognize the dozens of wasp biologists worldwide who have willingly answered my many naive questions about hornets.

Gard W. Otis
School of Environmental Sciences, University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada
Institute of Bee Health, University of Bern and Agroscope, Bern, Switzerland

Selected References
GDA (2023a). Georgia Department of Agriculture press release (Aug. 25, 2023). https://agr.georgia.gov/pr/yellow-legged-hornet-nest-eradicated-savannah-area
GDA (2023b) Georgia Department of Agriculture press conference (Aug. 25, 2023). https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?ref=watch_permalink&v=639982398259487
iNaturalist (2023). Yellow-legged Hornet (Vespa velutina). https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/119019-Vespa-velutina
INPN (2020). Le frailon asiatique, Vespa velutina. (The Asian Hornet, Vespa velutina). Inventarie National du Patrimoine Naturel. (http://frelonasiatique.mnhn.fr/)
Jones E.P., C. Conyers, V. Tomkies, et al. Managing incursions of Vespa velutina nigrithorax in the UK: an emerging threat to apiculture. Scientific Reports (2020) 10:19553. doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-76690-2
Kennedy P.J., S.M. Ford, J. Poidatz, et al. (2018). Searching for nests of the invasive Asian hornet (Vespa velutina) using radiotelemetry. Communications Biology 1: 88. doi: 10.1038/s42003-018-0092-9
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