November 2025

YLAH Coldharbour, Surrey by RBKA Member

On Sunday, 5 October one of our members spotted a Yellow Legged Asian Hornet picking off a bee on one of their hive’s landing boards in Coldharbour, Surrey. This predating on the bees is a clear indication the hornets are feeding larvae in a nest.

A photo was taken and sent immediately to the National Bee Unit via the Asian Hornet Watch app on their phone. Seen, Snapped & App’d.

Within an hour or so, contact had been made by the National Bee Unit (NBU) to say the member would be contacted imminently with instructions for the next steps. This was followed up shortly afterwards with contact from a Regional Bee Inspector providing further instructions.

At 9am on Monday morning a Southwest Regional Bee Inspector, Annabel Lewis, arrived at the site. A bait station was set up within the member’s apiary as well as three other stations within walking distance to where the hornet had been spotted.

On Tuesday the local Regional Bee Inspector, Tom Bickerdike, arrived to monitor these bait stations, and set up a couple more, to gain as much information as possible. A few YLAHs, 2 to 4, were attracted to a bait station of Trappit after first being seen by Tom, feeding on nearby ivy, which for the operation was good news at this stage. By Wednesday, (8th October) the Track and Trace operation became fully active with a team being called in to hunt down the nest.

The YLAH threat is on our doorstep there is no doubt and we may, as beekeepers, feel heightened concern. Rest assured that our bee inspectors across the country (members of the National Bee Unit, which comes under DEFRA) are doing an impressive job in carrying out their Eradication Policy.

Their action in Coldharbour and no doubt elsewhere, has been nothing but highly efficient, effective and professional. The Bee Inspectors are reporting that, to date, every confirmed sighting in the UK has ended in the eradication of the nest.

BUT they need as much help as they can get, please.

What can you do?

Make sure you have the Asian Hornet Watch app on your phone and encourage anyone you know and who can, to download it on their phone. See It! Snap It! App It!

If you can, set up a bait/monitoring station which you can monitor frequently.

Spread awareness of YLAH in any way you can.

Laminated A4 posters and information leaflets are available for distribution.

An ID sheet and poster can be downloaded from the YLAH pages of BeeBase .

Further resources and other useful information are available on BBKA Learning Online.

Follow YLAH updates on your Division’s website or Newsletter.

4It is likely that the YLAH spotted was a worker and that the unmated Queens, or Gynes, have not emerged from the nest. But very soon drones could be flying and between 200 and 500 Gynes can be produced per nest, ready to emerge and mate with the aim of hibernating till the Spring when the reproductive cycle begins over again. With everyone’s help, we can hopefully prevent this.

Finally, pray, do a dance, whatever, for some very cold snaps to put a stop to or at least hinder the Spring emergence of any possible over-wintering Queens.

Editor’s note: This latest nest is about 4km from Holmbury St Mary where a nest was recently found. This report has been prepared by the Reigate Beekeeper reporting the sighting and is published in full on the Reigate Beekeepers Members website. Slightly abridged versions have also been published on the Reigate Beekeepers public website (reigate beekeepers.org.uk) and provided here for circulation to the entire community of Surrey Beekeepers.

Richard Bradfeild, Chair Reigate Beekeepers, a Division of Surrey BKA.

Helen Worwood, (The Yellow-Legged Asian Hornet co-ordinator for Surrey BKA) points out that there is much good news in this story:

1. A vigilant beekeeper reported the sighting with a photograph very promptly.

2. The NBU were on site within 24 hours.

3. Tracking revealed the location of the nest within a week of report.

4. Destruction is likely imminent. (This was done.)

As mentioned in the Editorial, here are a couple of suggestions for your spare time in winter:

1. Have a look at this – Dave Cushman’s website: http://www.dave-cushman.net

It is a huge source of reliable beekeeping information that was started by the enthusiast, Dave Cushman, who sadly died in 2011. In order not to lose this great resource, it has been continued, updated and expanded by Roger Patterson, a highly respected Sussex beekeeper with well over 50 years’ experience. There is a comprehensive subject index as well as a more user-friendly A-Z index with hundreds of entries. However, there is no need to feel overwhelmed by the size of this resource, just use the index to access to some topic about which you would like some information.

2. Consider subscribing to The Apiarist. https://theapiarist.org

This weekly publication, emailed to subscribers, is the amazing work of a Scottish beekeeper, David, and is best described by him, in the introduction to his website:

‘This site is about beekeeping, More specifically, it is about “the science, art and practice of sustainable beekeeping … so much more than honey.”

Science, because I’m a scientist, and we know a lot about the biology of the honey bee, have lots more to learn and because this knowledge informs our beekeeping. Art, because of the considerable skill involved in properly managing bees, some of which results from this knowledge.

Practice, because beekeeping is, of necessity, a practical hobby, pastime, career … or obsession.’

His weekly items are often topical, always interesting, always informative, sometimes amusing, e.g. when he gives honest accounts of his mishaps, and occasionally quite beyond me, e.g. when he got enthusiastic about 3-D printing for making small hive parts.

This next bit is from Geoff:

‘The articles cover his varied topics in some depth, and often at a different angle from usual.’

You can be a subscriber and receive copies of his articles without payment – they come with a polite request to buy him a coffee (hint), but if you become a sponsor (currently only £50 per year), you receive more. If you would like to see an example of his work, I could send a sample issue to you.

Marion Cooper

Editorial

I am afraid that I have to draw your attention for the second Newsletter in succession to another extremely serious threat to our bees. I was first made aware of the very serious nature of a ‘new’ parasitic mite at a National Honey Show Lecture about four years ago. This rapidly spreading threat is the Tropilaelaps mite (about 1/4 – 1/3 the size of a Varroa mite) which was identified in Georgia (about 2000 miles from the UK) last year, and it is suspected that it is also present in Belarus and Crimea. There is an article on page 14 in the October 2025 issue of BBKA News describing this mite and its effects; I think this is essential reading for all of us beekeepers. I am sure that we all think that varroa is bad enough, but this miteis so much more serious and the author ‘found herself questioning what joy will be left in beekeeping when faced with a constant battle to manage Tropilaelaps’, and she thinks ‘we should do all in our power to keep it out of the UK’. The author of the article, Maggie Gill, will be giving a talk on Zoom later this month, (see EVENTS IN OCTOBER, p. 2), and also a lecture at the National Honey Show on her experiences of Tropilaelaps inAsian countries. We may well wonder what we can do in order to deal with this latest threat. Well, there is one thing that we can all do: we should ensure that any queens we buy are not imported, (the suppliers do not always make this clear whether they are or not). The importing of queens (each with a few worker bees), which is going on with only limited government control, is a major source of entry of many ‘nasties’ such as Tropilaelaps. We should also support the petition to the government, detailed on page 4 of the September issue of BeeCraft, which seeks to ban the importation of queens to Great Britain via Northern Ireland. The petition can be supported via the link:

www.petition.Parliament.uk/petitions/726878

Tropilaelaps talk on Zoom, Tuesday 21st October, 7pm

Here is the invitation from the BBKA:

The next in our series of Zoom talks will be ‘Tropilaelaps’ with Maggie Gill on Tuesday 21st October 2025 at 7pm. A recording of this talk will be available afterwards on YouTube for those unable to watch live.

Maggie Gill has been involved in beekeeping for 20 years, producing queens and colonies on a small commercial scale and conducting research. As a senior scientist at Defra for the UK government, her focus is on how agri-environment land management affects pollinators as a part of the Future Farming and Countryside Programme. Additionally, Maggie spent 10 years working for the National Bee Unit as part of the UK governments bee health monitoring programme as both a seasonal and regional bee inspector.

Driven by her passion for bees and environmental conservation, Maggie has engaged in honey bee research, examining pollinator nutrition, as well as pests and diseases. Her collaborative efforts have spanned universities, government departments, and research institutes across Europe, North America, and Asia.

Zoom link: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/81233819992?pwd=DYMZxTImJjpRCLJjYjvbIxgybQQdSZ.1

Meeting ID: 812 3381 9992 Passcode: 527929