Invasion of the Asian Giant Hornet

Awash in a sea of bad news, here’s some more. Late last year, Washington confirmed the presence of the Asian giant hornet in the northwestern corner of the state. That was shortly after Canadian authorities reported the hornets just across the water on Vancouver Island in September 2019. So this scourge has landed on North American shores, and short of a miraculous eradication effort (which is being pursued by the State of Washington), our continent is now stuck with these massive hornets.

Size comparison: western honey bee, European hornet, and Asian giant hornet (Washington Dept of Agriculture)

The Washington Department of Agriculture recently published a poster showing the size differences between various insects. I've winnowed them down to three of particular interest to me here in Missouri. On the left is our honey bee (apis mellifera). The middle is the European hornet (Vespa crabro), which is the biggest hornet I’ve personally witnessed. The European hornet sends shivers through my spine when I see it harassing my bees, but it pales in comparison to our newest invader. On the right is the Asian giant hornet (Vespa mandarinia)—an absolute beast at over 1 1/2 inches long.

This is all really bad news for the western honey bees we keep here in the US and Canada. Our bees didn’t evolve alongside the Asian giant hornet, and therefore have inadequate defenses against them. Meanwhile, the hornet—an apex predator with no natural predators itself—considers the honey bee a major part of its diet. There’s a lot to be said about how we might defend our colonies from this hornet, but for now I’m focused on the introduction of the species.

Honey bee on wild hyacinth

While to the best of our knowledge Asian giant hornets remain confined to a very small area in southwestern Canada and northwestern Washington, I've deployed a couple traps (shown above) built specifically to catch them. The hornets have not had time to get here to the Midwest naturally (and it's not clear to me if they’ll be able to cross the Rocky Mountains without human help), but all it’ll take are some castaways on a tractor-trailer driving east from the west coast. I built the traps with help from Washington’s hornet website, though I did deviate a bit due to the availability of ingredients (I’ll follow the instructions more precisely once pandemic-related shopping restrictions ease). I sincerely hope the traps go unused for decades to come. But I’ll continue to maintain them, because these traps and others like them could someday provide an early warning of Asian giant hornets arriving in the American Heartland—hopefully by then we’ve come up with a game plan to deal with them.

A Quarantined Beekeeper

As I write this on March 18th, we’re likely in the early swells of a COVID-19 tsunami that’s just arriving here in the United States. If Italy is a sign of things to come, things will get far worse before they get better. The responsible thing for us all to do right now is to stay put as much as possible. And while I’m in a low-risk demographic for becoming very ill from this new form of coronavirus, we all pose a threat to folks who are particularly vulnerable to the severe affects of this disease. So we’re all responsible for minimizing the toll on those people. From a public health perspective, that means I’m staying home way more than normal, being extra careful about sanitation, and keeping my distance when I need to interact with others. From a more personal perspective, that means I’ve got many hours to fill. So what’s a beekeeper to do with all those hours?

I really need to inspect my hives. I haven’t done a thorough set of inspections yet this year, and I’ve been waiting for a rare combination of 60° temperatures, dry weather, and a day off. Well, I just got a bunch of unexpected days off and the temps are getting high enough, but the forecast shows mostly rain as my self-imposed quarantine gets underway. Since opening the hives is off the table for now, I sat down and wrote up a lengthy list of tasks I intend to accomplish during this hiatus. Of course there are tasks on the list that aren’t related to beekeeping; for instance, I already started to fix up the old mountain bike I got as a birthday gift in 1993. There are obviously beekeeping chores on the docket too, including prepping equipment, reviewing my plans for the season, and of course those inspections that are due. But I also conjured up items I’ll call “beekeeping adjacent.”

My first purple deadnettle of 2020

One thing I’m going to do with my extra time is get up close and look at my surroundings. Each year I try to keep tabs on when flowers are blooming. In the past I mostly happened upon these flowers by chance; but this year I’m going to seek them out. I’m lucky enough to have some acreage, but even if you live on a small lot I bet there’s value in exploring the (sometimes tiny) plants hiding in the nooks and crannies of your yard. When you do find something blooming, head over to Beesource and post your discovery in your state’s Bloom Dates forum. You’ll gain an appreciation for the flowers in your own backyard, plus provide useful information to other beekeepers.

Planting a tulip poplar seedling

Another “beekeeping adjacent” chore is to plant seedlings. Last fall, I pre-ordered a bunch of trees and shrubs, and some were delivered this week. These include one of my top three favorite trees—the tulip poplar—as well as persimmons, ninebarks, and a whole lotta figworts. So I spent a couple hours today scouting for good planting locations, and even got about 10 trees in the ground. I don’t know what the odds are that I’ll be around when these trees are providing meaningful nectar to pollinators. But I’m reminded of a Greek proverb that says “A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit.”

With all the doom and gloom whirling around us right now, we must remember that what made our society good in the first place were generations of Americans who practiced the same kind of altruism we see in our honey bees. They—literally and figuratively—planted trees they knew they’d never get to enjoy themselves. If you’re a beekeeper, I suspect by your very nature you want to do good. So let’s fill our down time in the coming months with activities that will be helpful to flowers, fauna, and our fellow man. That could mean scattering some dandelion seeds in your yard, donating to an animal rescue, sharing your honey with food bank, or just staying home to slow the rate of infections.

Skunk Fence

Skunks are doing serious damage to my honey bee colonies this winter. They seem to be targeting a handful of hives, and I’m worried those bullied colonies won’t make it to spring. I’ve posted about critters eating my bees a couple times in the past. During those times, the frequency was more sporadic and the damage was less severe. All winter—each time I visit my bee yard—I’ve found entrance reducers removed and big wads of chewed up bees on the ground. I’d put the entrance reducers back on the hives, and the next day they’d be removed again. It was relentless. I while I tend to single out skunks for the sake of brevity, but I’m pretty sure possums and armadillos are playing a role too. Armadillos are new to central Missouri, as their range extends north with the warmer temperatures. In fact, I’ve seen armadillos darting out of my bee yard and into a nearby creek, and I wouldn’t be surprised if their presence accounts for the surprisingly consistent attacks on my hives this year. One thing I’m sure of—I can no longer sit idly by while my bees wage a nightly, losing battle.

A winter evening in the workshop; coming up with a game plan to ward off skunks and other nocturnal bee eaters

In devising a game plan, I considered a few options, including live trapping, erecting a fence around the apiary, and the ever-so-popular carpet tack strips on the landing board technique. The live traps lose their appeal when you consider “success” would consist of carrying a live skunk to a new home (and no, I won’t kill them). Fencing off the bee yard had a few downsides. First was the cost of materials and the time required to build the fence. Second was the idea of having to move the fence (or install multiple gates) to get my tractor or truck up next to the hives. Third was the prospect of having to re-build the fence if the bee yard moves or expands beyond its current size. So I looked for something else.

I settled on a plan to put rolls of fence in front of each hive. In theory, these should serve as obstacles and annoyances to any skunk, possum, armadillo, or racoon that tries to sit in front of the hives and lure bees out. For about $40, I got a couple rolls of 3’ by 50’ chicken wire fencing, plus some stakes to hold them in place in front of the hives. I unrolled about 6-7” of the fencing, cut it, and wired it in a roll with a 2’ diameter. I secured these in front of each hive by using a few stakes. As seen in the picture above, I had to cut “slits” into some of them so they’d fit around my hive stands. The whole process was cheap and easy. It’s been a few weeks since I installed these skunk fences, and so far the critters haven’t figured out how to get around them. There have been no signs of nighttime invaders—a relief to me and reprieve for my bees. I only wish I had done this sooner, and hope my colonies haven’t been too weakened to see springtime.