European and Asian Hornets

The European hornet

Big, Loud, and Not the Problem

The European hornet, Vespa crabro, is our native hornet and it is the one you will almost certainly have. It is large — a queen can reach 35mm, which is roughly twice a common wasp — and coloured brown, orange-amber and yellow rather than crisp black and yellow.

Its reputation is worse than it deserves. European hornets are noticeably less aggressive than common wasps away from the nest, and they do not have the late-summer scavenging habit, so they do not join you for lunch. They will defend a nest, as anything will, but they are not looking for trouble.

They nest in hollow trees, old outbuildings, roof voids and chimneys, and they are commoner in the wooded south of this patch — the Chilterns, old parkland — than they are in Milton Keynes. They also fly at night and are drawn to lit windows, which is how most people meet their first one.

Where a European hornet nest is somewhere out of the way, leaving it alone is a perfectly reasonable decision, and it will die off in autumn like any other annual colony. Where it is over a doorway, it is treated exactly like a wasp nest and at the same price.

The Asian hornet

Smaller, Much Darker, and Reportable

The yellow-legged Asian hornet, Vespa velutina, is a different matter. It is an invasive non-native species, it preys heavily on honeybees and other pollinators, and the national response depends on the public reporting sightings.

Counter-intuitively it is slightly smaller than the European hornet, not bigger. What identifies it:

• Yellow lower legs — as though the legs have been dipped in yellow paint. This is the clearest single feature and it is where the name comes from.
• A black, velvety thorax, with very little pattern.
• A dark abdomen with one wide orange band on the fourth segment.
• An orange face, with a black head seen from above.

The overall impression is of a dark hornet. A European hornet reads as brown and amber; this one reads as black with an orange band.

Reporting it

Three Routes, and a Photograph Matters Most

If you think you have seen one, report it. A written description is much less use than a picture, so take a photograph if you can do it safely, and do not put yourself near a nest to get one.

• The "Asian Hornet Watch" app, developed by the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology and commissioned by Defra. It is on both app stores, it lets you compare against similar species, and it fills in the date and location for you.
• The online alert form at brc.ac.uk.
• By email to alertnonnative@ceh.ac.uk, with the photograph, the location and your contact details.

Reporting is free and it is genuinely useful — the whole approach depends on nests being found early. Beekeepers will thank you.

It is also worth knowing that a great many reports turn out to be European hornets, hoverflies or large wasps, and that is fine. Nobody minds a report that turns out to be nothing. They mind a nest that nobody mentioned.

What we do about hornets

The Same Job, With More Respect

A European hornet nest that needs dealing with is treated the same way as a wasp nest and at the same fixed price. The differences are practical: the nest is often deeper into a structure, they are active later into the evening, and a hornet sting hurts more, so the approach is more cautious and the timing may be different.

If you have something you think might be an Asian hornet, report it through one of the routes above first. That is not us avoiding the work — it is that the sighting matters nationally and the record needs to exist.

Either way, ring and describe it. Size against a common wasp, and the colour of the legs, will get us most of the way before anyone travels.

Short answers

Wasp Questions

Going further

Wasp Guides