BEING hunted, thrown into a plastic bag and frozen alive would probably spell the end for most creatures – but it turns out that the Asian hornet can be hard to kill.
The team responsible for tracking the invasive species have told how the half-dead occupants of one of the biggest nests they had ever encountered emerged to attack – despite being frozen for more than a day.
The nest, which weighed just over 8kg and was close to a metre in width, was found in a field near Waitrose in Vallée des Vaux.
Jersey Asian Hornet Group volunteer Bob Tompkins said the team became aware of it when a dog walker spotted hornets disappearing into a large bramble patch on the edge of a footpath.
‘It was the biggest ground-based nest we’ve ever had,’ he said.
‘You can imagine what would have happened if someone was just coming along to pick blackberries.’
More than 1,300 hornets were removed using a specially designed vacuum, while a further 235 from the monster nest were caught in nearby traps.
The nest was transferred to a freezer, where it was stored for 28 hours before its dissection by group members John de Carteret and Bob Hogge.
However, Mr de Carteret said that the process – which usually kills all of the resident insects – had failed to wipe out the large nest’s population.
‘Normally they just go in overnight. We peeled the bag back, took a look and thought “hang on, that’s a live hornet coming out”,’ he said.
The nest, which appeared to contain around eight or nine combs, was immediately put back into the freezer to be dissected later this week.
Record numbers of Asian-hornet nests have been found in Jersey this year, with the count standing at 132 at the time of writing.
This has broken the previous record of 83 nests located by the Jersey Asian Hornet Group in 2019, which was followed by 38 the year after and 63 in 2021.
The Island’s Asian-hornet co-ordinator, Alastair Christie, last month urged anyone working outdoors, such as those preparing for the branchage, to check their surroundings before cutting vegetation.
The warning was issued shortly after a farmer was attacked by a swarm and stung several times, due to accidentally striking a nest with a mower.
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