I have two colonies of bees. I have growing concerns with regard to some invasive large yellow hornets that are harvesting workers as they exit and enter the hive. I was told that they couldn’t do much harm, as they can only get one bee at a time. I studied this a while, and came to the conclusion that this advice is incorrect.
I am reminded of a popular children’s book written by Helena Clara Pittman, called “A Grain Of Rice.” In the book it describes that a humble farmer, asks the Emperor for one single grain of rice, with the amount to be doubled every day for one hundred days. Without stopping to calculate how much rice this will be, the emperor agrees, only to discover that a single grain of rice can be turned into all the wealth in the kingdom for this farmer.
It seems that the situation with the yellow hornets is similar; if five hornets gather a single bee each every hour, for a twelve hour period, that’s sixty bees. Multiply by seven days, that’s three hundred and sixty bees,by four weeks= one thousand- four hundred forty bees. Over the summer season of three months, four thousand three hundred twenty.
Worker bees take twenty days to develop, and it is estimated that the entire brood of five to six thousand several weeks to regenerate. This means that it only takes a few of these hornets to cause a lot of damage.
If anyone has a method, or trap to get rid of these pests without further causing harm to the honey bees, I surely would appreciate your advice.