Phil Lester: Victoria University Ecology and Entomology Professor on the efforts to stamp out yellow-legged hornets

Efforts to stamp out yellow-legged hornets in New Zealand are widening. 

Biodiversity New Zealand is expanding the 5-kilometre surveillance zone in Glenfield and Birkdale on Auckland's North Shore further out to 11-kilometres, to ensure only one population is at large. 

Victoria University Ecology and Entomology Professor Phil Lester told Kerre Woodham hornets target worker bees one by one and will hurt more than our honey sector.  

He says bees support our dairy, kiwifruit, and avocado industries, and if they get established it will be a real problem. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Carrywood and Morning's podcast from News TALKSDB.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
Efforts to track down the yellow legged hornet have ramped up,
as you'll have heard in our news. You will have
heard in our news that Auckland's north shore the hornet
surveillance zone is expanding. There have been thirty four queens
and twenty two nests destroyed so far. So they've widened
the perimeter from five k's to eleven on expert advice,

(00:34):
and we need to do all we can if you
are living in the area to help out. So this
is basically a PSA. Yellow legged hornets are a non
native pest. Biosecurity in New Zealand wants to hear from
anyone who has a suspected hornet specimen, has located a
possible nest or who has taken a clear photo. I

(00:55):
spoke to the Professor of Ecology and Entomology at Victoria University,
Phil Leicester earlier and he explained exactly why these hornets
are such bad had bad pests to have in our environment? Sure, Okerry,
why is this yellow legged hornet so dangerous? Why why
is biosecurity taking it so seriously?

Speaker 3 (01:17):
We've seen it invade Europe, so that the world's experience
with it is around. That invaded Europe in France about
two thousand and four and has since then spread throughout
France very quickly, into Spain, into Germany and across the
ditch into the UK as well. So in there and

(01:38):
all those places it's had a major effect on their
biodiversity and especially on their honeybees. So the honeybee loss
in parts of France has been substantial. They're looking at
a thirty to eighty percent of hives that are killed
by this hornet. It's a specialist on yeah, it's a
specialist on honeybee consumption. So it will stay outside honey

(02:00):
hives and pack off workers as they come back to
the hive and eventually can kill the hive entirely.

Speaker 2 (02:06):
And what happens after a hive has been decimated, can
it be rebuilt or not?

Speaker 3 (02:12):
Often not right, So this is a complete death and
destruction of that high when it is in such abundance
and autumn, especially that they're picking off those individual workers
and eventually the high collapses and dives.

Speaker 2 (02:26):
I mean, we have a honey industry we're quite rightly
proud of. So that's at risk if we don't achieve eradication.

Speaker 3 (02:33):
Yeah, and it's more than the honey industry unfortunately. So
you think of honey bees, and you do think of
honey that you spread on your toast, Manuca honey and
that sort of thing which is of high value to
New Zealand. But going beyond the nation pollination that they
really support our dairy industry Kiwi fruit, our avocados and
that sort of thing. This would be if this WRN

(02:55):
it gets established, it will be a major problem and
threat to those industries.

Speaker 2 (03:00):
How did it get here? Can we prevent when you're coming?

Speaker 4 (03:04):
Yeah, we don't really know how it managed to get
it here. The guess is, you.

Speaker 3 (03:08):
Know it's coming on a container or something like that,
and it you know, could have come in from from Europe.
But what happens with this hornet life cycle is there
is the queen's mate in autumn, so it may have
made in an autumn somewhere in Europe's managed to get
on a container or in some luggage or something. It's

(03:29):
hibernating at that stage, so it's overwintering and sort of
very quiet and very still and very difficult to see.
It's managed to wake up here and probably last spring
and establish a nest, and that nests has then grown
developed here and produced hundreds more, perhaps new queens that

(03:50):
have dispersed around Glenfield and Auckland.

Speaker 2 (03:53):
Because we're hearing about a lot of them being found
and other biosecurity wars bio wars, the body count hasn't
been as high from what I remember as what we're
hearing with these yellow leg tornets, there seems to be
a lot of them.

Speaker 3 (04:11):
Yeah, we were hoping there weren't very many, but certainly
it does seem so the sound thirty four I think
was the latest count, and so thirty four is a
lot and the rate of discovery is still increasing, so
we think there are still more out there that we've
we've got to get and the pressure is on to

(04:32):
get them before the end of autumn, so that the
end of autumn when they're producing more queens, we've got
to prevent that. We've got to get them all before then.
So we've got a little bit of time ahead of us.
But they certainly really appreciate the greater public's helper on
this in terms of finding ness and submitting photos. That
seems hugely useful. MPI are onto it, and yeah, we're

(04:55):
trying our best to find and kill them.

Speaker 2 (04:57):
Before autumn, I was out at the line on the
weekend and thought I saw one with its long yellow legs,
but I wasn't sure, and then I wasn't quite sure
what to do because it was buzzing around. And then
by the time i'd gone out to get to get
my phone to take a photo of it, yeah, I
didn't really and then I didn't know whether to call
buy a security to come around immediately or it might

(05:19):
not have been you know, the yellow leaite corner. What
do you do if you think you've seen one of
these leggy things?

Speaker 3 (05:25):
The MPO I really want pictures, so, you know, as
much as I'd love the New Zealand public to be
very familiar.

Speaker 4 (05:32):
With our biodiversity and what a.

Speaker 3 (05:34):
Wasp and a horn it and a bee looks like,
unfortunately we're not quite at that level of education.

Speaker 4 (05:40):
So so to really get us to be able.

Speaker 3 (05:44):
To determine, okay, this is a hornet or this is
a wasp or this is a bee, pictures are the
best thing. So yeah, we'd love people to take intimate
pictures as many as they can.

Speaker 2 (05:57):
Well having a property up north where I've got three
different wasp varieties plus the bees, which really grinds my gears,
and I'd love them all eradicated from these. I kind
of do know the difference between a wasp and a hornet,
but I wasn't sure if this was a bad hornet
or a very very.

Speaker 3 (06:13):
Bad horn Yeah, so that we only have this is
that this would be the first hornet that we'd have. So,
and they're larger that there. They are sort of between
two and three centimeters. So the wasps that we get
typically small small eggs. But the paper wasps that you
have that they have really long legs. They do, yeah,

(06:35):
and you can see them when they're flying around. They
sort of have them dangling out behind them almost when
when they're flying around. So there is But if we
can get pictures on flowers or pictures on food or whatever,
that that's awesome. If we can get people doing some trapping,
so mp I have a website with some homemade traps
that people can make and bait and capture some that

(06:56):
would be awesome too, to you know, an easy way
to sort of get pictures. If they're in the trap,
we can take pictures of them, that sort of thing
that is hugely useful. So we really need to find
out where they are at, how wide they are at,
and do something about them before they manage to reproduce a.

Speaker 2 (07:13):
Homemade Trap's a good idea because I am in that area,
so I might do that to see if I can
find old mate who is lurking around on the weekend. Yep,
Is it possible to eradicate it? It sounds like it
sounds like it is vitally important that every attempt is made.

Speaker 3 (07:31):
Yeah, that's what we are recommending to nursery, primary, for
primary industries and to everybody who will listen.

Speaker 4 (07:38):
I think that this is a hugely This could be
a hugely.

Speaker 3 (07:43):
Bigger problem for New Zealand if it manages to get away.
They do affect our primary industries, and they would affect
their primary industries or honeybees. But also they sting people
and they kill people, you know, so people die from
these every year in Europe and or are injured by
them and inflect choc and that's sort of thing that
they are very defensive around their nests, especially they must die.

Speaker 2 (08:03):
I'm going to get a trap by the weekend.

Speaker 3 (08:05):
That would be great and if your listeners would really
appreciate it, so that if you look up yellow legg
at hornets and MPI, that you'll come across a website
and that has details on a homemade trap that anybody
can make and look. We'd love people to do that
and submit pictures as many pictures as we can to
MPI to see where they are at.

Speaker 2 (08:28):
We cannot overestimate the importance of doing that. I really
appreciate your time, no problems.

Speaker 1 (08:33):
That was our.

Speaker 2 (08:35):
Entomologist from Victoria University, Phil Lester, talking about the danger
posed by the yellow leged tornt mainly in the north Shore.
So if we can all get traps out this weekend,
that would be good. They tell you how to do
it on the website. If you go to NPI dot
GOVT dot m Z, you'll be able to find it.

Speaker 1 (08:54):
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