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It does look remarkably as if it is.
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"This near two-inch long hornet buzzed by Beverley Taylor when she was sat in her Hampshire garden with friend Emilia Da Silva Sousa"
That sounds a very cruel thing to do to two girls. I wonder who put them there?
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>> "This near two-inch long hornet buzzed by Beverley Taylor when she was sat in her Hampshire garden with friend Emilia Da Silva Sousa"
Only an inch according to the tape measure. No visible sting either.
That's a GIRL's hornet. One of these docile European jobs. Buzzing was the most frightening thing it could do.
'When she was sat in her Hampshire garden' indeed! Tchah!
Last edited by: Armel Coussine on Wed 22 Jul 15 at 01:34
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Alas, Cliff, the ship has sailed on that one.
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>> buzzed by Beverley Taylor when she was sat in her...
What frightful grammar - "was sat" indeed.
Sorry AC, didn't see your similar comment.
Last edited by: Roger. on Wed 22 Jul 15 at 09:31
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>> >> buzzed by Beverley Taylor when she was sat in her...
>>
>> What frightful grammar - "was sat" indeed.
>>
>> Sorry AC, didn't see your similar comment.
Especially as the lady herself is quoted "I was sitting...". The Mail should give her a job.
That horse has indeed bolted - it has always been common in speech (Yorkshire vernacular all of my life) but not usually seen in print, where I now see it regularly.
My guess is that those Mail articles, and similar ones in other online editions designed to generate ad-clicks, are churned out in low-wage locations by people whose first language is not English.
Increasingly too the papers are padded out with 'articles' by people who are not professional writers, probably located in Chipping Norton and rabbiting incomprehensibly about their nannies or the proletarian pleasure of a deep fried Mars bar accompanied by a glass of Chateau d'Yquem left over from last weekend's kitchen supper.
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It's certainly a hornet - the size and the orange (rather than yellow) coloration give you that. But I see nothing to say it's not a regulation British hornet, Vespa crabro, like the ones that nest in the old trees round here. They're far from aggressive - I occasionally encounter one in the loft and it will fly a wide arc around me rather than straight at me as one of its little yellow Vespula cousins would. I rather like them, and they prey on caterpillars and maggots, not bees. Nothing to worry about.
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I've now read the Mail article and it is, would you believe, ignorant, sensationalist garbage. The insects in all the pictures look like V. crabro to me. The evidence that the individuals were aggressive seems to be limited to one crawling out from under a bucket and another sitting on a fence for two hours, bothering nobody. Yes, they'll defend their nest with their stings, but hornets nest high up in old trees, often deep in the woods; you have to go well out of your way to disturb them!
There's some proper information here:
www.nhm.ac.uk/nature-online/species-of-the-day/collections/our-collections/vespa-crabro/
Look at the pictures of V. orientalis and V. velutina and you'll see they're quite different, especially in the abdominal patterning.
The worry about this sort of garbage is that it will lead to excitable Mail readers (is there any other kind?) blatting harmless and beneficial hornets, possibly even cutting down trees they might nest in, in the mistaken belief that they're a deadly invasive species.
Incidentally, bearing in mind that six deaths have been attributed to V. velutina since it arrived in France in 2005, there are typically half a dozen deaths a year in the UK from bee and wasp stings, almost always people with an allergy to the venom. In other words, (a) the additional number of deaths is insignificant, and (b) they have probably been in people who would have had the same reaction to an ordinary wasp sting. Leave our hornets alone!
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>> The worry about this sort of garbage is that it will lead to excitable Mail
>> readers (is there any other kind?) blatting harmless and beneficial hornets, possibly even cutting down
>> trees they might nest in, in the mistaken belief that they're a deadly invasive species.
To be fair, the 2nd top comment starts off with "How many more of these stupid, inaccurate scare stories do we have to endure?". (The 1st states this wouldn't have happened if we'd voted UKIP :)
Last edited by: Focusless on Wed 22 Jul 15 at 10:17
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>> To be fair, the 2nd top comment starts off with "How many more of these
>> stupid, inaccurate scare stories do we have to endure?". (The 1st states this wouldn't have
>> happened if we'd voted UKIP :)
Don't worry we will get on the job!
No automatic right of entry for hornets. :-)
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>>hornets nest high up in old trees, often deep in the woods
Probably not it France. We house- sat in a property not far from the centre of Aix en Provence one summer. The owner did not point out that there were hornet nests visible in the small trees on the edge of the grassed area. They were soon seen inside the house. On the advice of the town police station I engaged a bee keeper, who happened to be known to the police, to deal with them.
Neither the police nor the bee keeper pointed out what I found later, that this is a free service provided by the fire brigade. I imagine they split the fee.
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The British Hornet and the European Hornet are of course one and the same - as you say Vespa crabro.
Hornets are pretty placid creatures - much less troublesome than the common wasp though they do pack a powerful sting if you happen to kneel on one or pick one up. Quite common in the Brecks of Norfolk around Thetford
Its larger cousin is the Asian Hornet, Vespa Mandarinia.
The Mail's article is confusing and alarmist (no surprise there!). Asian Hornets are no more dangerous than their European counterparts. The deaths reported in France have all been from anaphylactic shock from those with an allergy to wasp and bee stings rather than any particular toxicity of their stings
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>> Found it on my loo floor about an hour ago.
Is that why it looks so dozy, cos it had been gassed ;)
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Another unwanted European migrant? - No FM2R
