Photo: Biosecurity NZ
The anti-pest army is being mobilised, local Facebook pages are buzzing and a swarm of publicity embarked upon, all aimed at stamping out the yellow-legged hornet
The threat to New Zealand from the yellow-legged hornet is immense, but it stretches beyond the risk to our honey industry and $59 billion primary industry.
The pest has a nasty sting, far worse than ordinary hornets or bees, and can penetrate the visors in beekeeping suits with their venom.
So far four queens and two males have been found in Auckland, with 120 traps laid on the North Shore where the Vespa Velutina queens were discovered.
"Apiarists are concerned ... and would love to see a whole lot of action right now to try and get on top of this," says Victoria University's Phil Lester, a professor of ecology and entomology. "There's good reason for them to be really worried here."
"They're a real common cause of anaphylaxis overseas, in Europe, and do unfortunately kill people from time to time. There are hospitalisations every year in places like Spain where people's vision has become affected by getting squirted with venom. The suits that we wear typically to deal with wasps or bees in New Zealand would be not sufficient to deal with these hornets - we would need special suits."
Their target though is honeybees, which obviously poses a threat to our $400 million in annual honey exports, but also to our 27 native bee species and the pollinators that industries such as kiwifruit and avocado rely on. They perform a function estimated to be worth $5b.
In today's podcast Lester runs through where the hornets may have come from, their "bee hawking" behaviour, and what you can do to help with the eradication effort.
That includes making a simple trap that can be constructed from a plastic bottle and hung from a tree in your yard. The queens are about 3cm long and the drones are smaller - if you get a good photo of a dead one, or find a nest, you can email MPI with the evidence: report.mpi@govt.nz
The hornets have invaded Europe, particularly in France (where up to 30 percent of hives have been lost) and the UK; and Georgia in the US is battling them now too. Lester says the queens may have arrived already fertilised, hiding in a container of goods.
"They're hard to spot. They're just individual, small wasps that are fertilised, ready to go, ready to build a new nest when they arrive."
That makes the fact they were reported to authorities quite astonishing, but the man in charge of the eradication programme, Mike Inglis, says New Zealanders are great at helping to combat invasive species.
In response to criticism that it hasn't acted quickly enough, he says MPI is working alongside a strong core of technical advisors on this, and is doing everything it can to contain and manage it.
Social media is being utilised to publicise the issue, there have been leaflet drops and staff are at local markets giving out information. There's strong communication with the local board and council.
"My staff are very, very passionate ... we respond extremely quickly. We rely on the community as a massive team here because we're all trying to protect New Zealand as well as the economy so members of the public phoning that line [0800 809 966], that's where we get a lot of our intelligence post-border and we do respond immediately."
Apiculture New Zealand chief executive Karin Kos says MPI's initial response was "probably a bit soft, but they've certainly heard the message loud and clear from our sector".
"I think they've certainly stepped up and they are taking that seriously.
"We have regular briefings with them but we need to make sure that we also as a sector do all we can to make sure our beekeepers are armed with enough information and knowledge to be able to spot these things and to report them back to Biosecurity New Zealand as quickly as possible, and we don't underestimate the value of the public as well in terms of reporting these.
"At this stage at least it has been in the hobby sort of areas rather than commercial, but obviously we don't want it to go any further."
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