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Talkback: Hornets
Gardeners' World Web User
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Yet again Health and blasted Safety rears its ugly head. Everyone has got USA syndrome i,e, they are scared of being sued so action first, think later.
I didn't realize hornets were peaceful and have been very wary of them. I think people get scared of them as they sound like low flying aeroplanes!
In future I will respect them and leave them to it.
I didn't realize hornets were peaceful and have been very wary of them. I think people get scared of them as they sound like low flying aeroplanes!
In future I will respect them and leave them to it.
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This seems to have been a pointless slaughter.
Thanks
Currently they are making the most of the remaining grapes and figs on the trees and enjoying the October sunshine.
There is no doubt that hornet stings, like wasp stings, are very painful. But ordinarily they are not dangerous. The sting is an injection of venom, so the danger is proportional to the amount of toxin injected. Small children, old people, sick people or those with compromised immune systems are more at risk. A very few over-sensitive people may be unfortunate enough to suffer an extreme bodily reaction to the venom and go into life-threatening anaphylactic shock.
All this is true, but it is also true of bumblebee stings and honeybee stings. Yet the general public's reaction to these other insects (usually regarded as 'friendly') is completely different to their panicked response to hornets.
Hornets really are very secretive and docile. Ironically, honeybees are probably the most aggressive of the lot. We need to get these things into proportion.
If you follow the link to Penny's Flickr photostream, you will see there were still grubs in the nest. The two photos here are both of males, which indicate that the nest had got to the point where the new sexual generation had emerged. Hopefully a few queens got away. We'll know next year.
We used to live in cambridge and had a big eucolpytus tree in our garden we took a big branch off and for days hornets came and drank from the wound i had never seen a hornet before and at first i was quite frightend but i started to watch them and found they were quite gentle creatures i happened to mentioned them to one of my neighbours and he said he had a hornets nest in one of his trees in his front garden and there seemed to be no problem