AN elderly woman phoned 999 after finding an Asian hornet in a pair of trousers.
The insect – believed to have been a hibernating queen – startled the Islander when it flew out of the garments which she had taken out of a wardrobe at her home on Wellington Hill.
She then trapped it under a yoghurt pot and called the police, who then contacted the Asian hornet co-ordinator.
John de Carteret, a retired-police-officer-turned-volunteer-Asian-hornet-hunter, arrived on the scene and froze the home-invader solid with a specialist insect spray.
The incident came following an exceptionally busy season for the volunteer team, who destroyed a record-breaking 174 nests.
MAP SHOWS EVERY ASIAN HORNET NEST FOUND IN JERSEY IN 2022: CLICK HERE
Any surviving nests will now have produced up to 200 queens which will be finding places to hibernate over the winter before starting their own colonies next spring, although only about a dozen from each nest usually survive the colder months.
‘When I arrived it was very much fighting fit so I sprayed it with an insect spray which comes out at minus forty-five,’ said Mr de Carteret.
‘It was quite funny as the hornet was just standing there looking at me and it just instantly froze solid.’
He added: ‘It is quite unusual and is a bit of a wake-up call. When it came out of the trousers it just flew off to the window but given the opportunity it could have stung the woman.
‘I am not suggesting that people start searching through their wardrobes, but people do need to be aware that queen hornets will now be trying to find a cool place with a constant temperature where they can hibernate.
‘People need to be aware that they can turn up anywhere. The nearest recorded nest was over 800 metres away on Trinity Hill, and as professional researchers tell us that the newly emerged Asian hornet queens hibernate near their nests, this may tend to indicate the presence of an unrecorded nest close by.’
He continued: ‘I am an ex-police officer and I’m pretty sure they would not have had a clue how to deal with this call, so the best thing people can do is phone the Asian hornet number 441633 or email asianhornet@gov.je.
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Up close and personal with the ‘Trouser Queen’ CLICK HERE
