Ruud Kleinpaste: Yellow-legged Hornets

When I arrived in New Zealand as an immigrant (in 1978), the Asian Paperwasp arrived here too. I remember I was impressed by the New Zealand obsessions to keep these invaders out of the kiwi ecosystems.

A few years later I started working for the Ministry of Agriculture and the Asian (or Chinese) Paperwasp was still being pursued; unfortunately without success. We tried to create some pro-active techniques to stop unwanted critters making it to our wonderful country and every time some new pest arrives, I feel awful and ready to have a crack at a counter offensive. 

So – here we are …. With a real “Hornet” (Hornets are a different group of wasps): The yellow-Legged Hornet. Have a look at the pictures of these brutes: they have yellow legs and are way bigger than the wasps we are used to.

They are originally from East and South-East Asia (My birth place: Indonesia!!) and rapidly moving all over the place: the rest of Asia, Korea, Japan, Now Europe, France, Spain, Portugal, Italy Belgium and the UK.

Almost exactly 8 years ago it showed its “EU Passport” in the Netherlands; Let me tell you that the Dutch moved rather quickly to knock that hornet on the head…  Good Luck!! Rather recently it was found in Ireland – an island with perhaps better chances to eradicate it. This Hymenopteran is on the move!!

Nobody likes this beastie – it simply has no sense of humour; in terms of its dietary preference you could say that this Hornet is as selective as a vacuum cleaner.

It goes for all sorts of native insects (flies, beetles, wasps, honey bees) ripe fruits, pollen and nectar, as well as people with allergies to wasp stings.

So right now is the time to gather the Nature Nerds of our country and start our counter attack, together with the Ministry of Primary Industries.

So far we’ve found 2 adult male yellow-legged hornets in Grafton and Albany – that was some months ago. A week ago there was a female (a Queen) in Glenfield, trying to build a brand-new nest. That nest was still small and light in colour:

The very beginning of the nest, made by the queen (a so-called “primary nest”) 
This nest can grow much bigger as the colony builds up in numbers (up to 60 centimetre diameter); so far MPI haven’t found any established nests yet

So, how can we all help to give MPI a hand getting rid of this pest species:

Gardeners are usually extremely observant, when it comes to insects on the property and in this case the identification is relatively easy (especially with NatureNerd kids in the household!!)

Identification: The Hornets (on the left) are quite a bit bigger than German wasps (on the right), common wasps and our established species of paperwasps. Thorax and abdomen have different colours too. Wings rather dark and not translucent – I reckon most people can see that easily.

At this stage we simply do not have a useful treatment to kill these rotters in your garden; I’m sure some scientists as well as back-yard inventors might try their luck with all sorts of concoctions, fatal to the hornets, but in my opinion it’s best to do the following as soon as you find a nest or some big hornets in your garden:

First Report it to MPI: Contact MPI’s exotic pest and disease hotline: [phone]

Carefully take a photo of the suspect insect(s)

Alternatively: report these pests online: https://report.mpi.govt.nz/pest/

Have a look at the Fact Sheet: https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=keep+an+eye+out+for+yellow-legged+hornets

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack Team podcast
from News Talks.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
That'd be rude climb passes our man in the garden.
He's here this morning at Mai.

Speaker 3 (00:17):
Good morning, sir, Unti money, have you become an entomologist?

Speaker 2 (00:22):
I knew you'd be loving the bug content this morning.
So have you ever come across I was going through
my bad at Chibad experiences. I mean, you've got your
SAand flyes. So first of all, sand flies, do you
build up a resistance? Do they stop binding you after
two days? No?

Speaker 3 (00:36):
There are thirteen species of sand flies, two either ones
that like people, and those two know exactly where you are.

Speaker 2 (00:43):
Okay, because I'm convinced that even if you've been on
if you go to the West Coast for a couple
of days, if you go for a week, yeah, Monday
and Tuesday are terrible. You absolutely smashed by sand flies.
Wednesday's okay. By Friday you're fine. Friday you're just walking around.
You were in a singleton, Stubb. He's no drama. But
the locals you need hear a local moaning about the
sand flies on the West coast.

Speaker 3 (01:02):
You know, No, that's right, that's right. You do get
you do get a bit of an and tolerance for
it if you like. Yeah, and I think that's that's
probably the word. But you got it. Yeah, absolutely, And
these guys have of course, you have to remember people
have not lived in our theo of more than till
thousand years.

Speaker 2 (01:21):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:21):
And and these sentries were here anyway, and they decided,
bugger the wal rushes and the and the and all
the other things that are on the beach. We're kind
to go for his for the barking. Hell.

Speaker 2 (01:32):
Yeah, So poor on Iceland, speaking of unwanted friends, Poor
in Iceland has ended up with mosquitos for the first time.
But we have these yellow legged hornets that have been discovered.

Speaker 3 (01:43):
Yeah. Now, I saw this coming about three months ago
because I remember taking the mention of MBI of that
this had happened, and I took a piece of paper
and sat on my desk, thinking, one day I'm going
to use this son text program. And it only took
three months, and here this is. We now have a
second and third case that's in Auckland. And I tell

(02:08):
you what, I've seen these things in Japan and they
are big. I mean, you know what a wasp looks like,
don't you roughly yeah, okay, at least one and a
half times the size. You can hear them coming as
if they are driving in a lawn mower with wings.
You know what I mean. It is unbelievable. And the

(02:29):
second thing is they have no sense of humor. They
are really really aggressive. They'll get anything they want and
have a go at it. And there you are. And
so we have this problem. So I have lovely chat
with my MPI colleagues, if you like, because I used
to work in this gig. When I became part of
Ministry of Agriculture, we had one of these paper wasps

(02:52):
coming into New Zealand. It's the same thing that was
those that was in nineteen eight seven six Actually they
yeah that sort of time when I was there, but
they arrived there too. So here we go.

Speaker 4 (03:07):
We've got these yellow legged hornets in Auckland at the moment.
And what I suggest we do as gardeners and as
nations and people who are in the in the garden
or outside all the time, keep an eye out for
these things because we are still in a system by
which we can do something about it. Not in the Netherlands,
they they probably lost it by the way, last week Ireland,

(03:31):
same species.

Speaker 2 (03:33):
Oh really Ireland? Yes, wow, okay, yes, yeah.

Speaker 3 (03:38):
It's it's it's a thing from Asia. It's in Spain,
it's in France. It's been there for quite a while
and now being go here. And I think it's got
something to do with with boats coming into the harbor
and these things having or almost not good nests yet.
So here you go. All the stuff I put into
your stuff, maybe you will put on the website. But

(04:01):
the first thing I say, keep come, keep your eyes
open and report to NPI eight hundred eighth nine ninety
six six. For goodness sake, let's have a go with this.

Speaker 2 (04:12):
Yeah, I totally agree.

Speaker 4 (04:13):
All right.

Speaker 2 (04:13):
We're going to make sure that number for the hotline
as well as the MPI report form is up on
the News Talks CB weeps up. We've got some photos
as well, so you can compare the hornets with paper wasps.
Make sure you're getting the right yellow legged thing. But
they are big, So thank you for that. Rude uclimb
past in the garden for us.

Speaker 1 (04:30):
For more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame, listen live
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