Touching an exceptional nest of large Asian hornets Vespa ducalis

This is an exceptionally large colony of a large Asian hornet species, Vespa ducalis. These hornets are larger than the European hornet Vespa crabro but slightly smaller and more slender than the Asian giant hornet Vespa mandarinia. They usually nest underground but occasionally nest within old buildings in rural areas as well. This nest was found in a rural village house in Hong Kong's New Territories, and as of August 1, 2009, has four combs; this is exceptionally big since most nests reach a maximum of three combs in late September. My friend and I found it in early July and have been checking on it every week to document its progress - and can never resist taking photos and videos of ourselves touching the nest because we are still amazed by how gentle and unaggressive these impressive creatures are.

This video actually comprises parts of two videos taken a week or so apart.The first part of this video (from start till 0:50) shows the hornets going about their business on the nest, then my friend puts his hand on the nest envelope. The second part shows the nest a week later, with the envelope expanded and a fourth comb built. This time, my friend doesn't stop at putting his hand on the envelope, he presents his finger to the hornets and touches different parts of the nest. It looks like something requiring lots of courage, but in actual fact these are possibly the most gentle, least aggressive of social wasps - certainly the most gentle hornets around. We have noticed only three reactions from the workers upon contact with a human hand on the nest - they either turn around and avoid the hand, simply walk over it or at the very most, grab and give a few bites before moving in the opposite direction! There are seven other recorded species of hornets in Hong Kong, five of which are smaller than Vespa ducalis, but yet the smaller ones are much more aggressive and dangerous when disturbed! This video is not intended to show off - rather it is concrete evidence that not only are hornets not out to attack people for nothing, but that some larger, more scary looking species are in fact gentle giants. Note that we are doing this based on more than a decade of experience with social bees and wasps - do not attempt to do this if not familiar with your local species. In any case there will be few, if any, species which are equally calm - we would never do something like that with a nest of any other species!

Category:

Pets & Animals

Tags:

• Hong
• Kong
• Asian
• Hornet
• bee
• wasp
• yellowjacket
• paperwasp
• Vespa
• ducalis
• crabro
• soror
• mandarinia