Asian hornet outbreak contained, says Defra

Officials have destroyed an Asian hornet nest in Gloucestershire after the invasive species was spotted there, posing a threat to the UK’s honeybees

Press Association

Friday 4 November 2016 16.36 GMT

An Asian hornet outbreak has been contained, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has said. The first sightings of the pest in the mainland UK were reported in Tetbury, Gloucestershire, in September.

Inspectors from the National Bee Unit destroyed the nest and although two dead hornets were found in North Somerset no further sightings have been reported.

Nicola Spence,Defra’s deputy director for plant and bee health, said: “I am pleased our well-established protocol to eradicate Asian hornets has worked so effectively. We remain vigilant, however, and will continue to monitor the situation and encourage people to look out for any Asian hornet nests.”

Asian hornets are a predator of honey bee colonies and other insects. The Asian hornet is now common across Europe after being introduced in error to France in 2004 in a shipment of pottery from China.

In the summer, the hornet was discovered in the Channel Islands of Jersey and Alderney for the first time.

Defra said that it was possible Asian hornets could reappear in England next year and members of the public are urged to report any suspected sightings in the spring.



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The monstrous serpent was real!

On a calm and sunny day in August 1817, a few Gloucester fishermen rowing out to work saw a strange animal break the surface right in their harbor. Something they’d never seen before. Something moving in jolting, up-and-down motions. And something really, really big. Witness Solomon Allen III later reported, “I should judge him between eighty and ninety feet in length, and about the size of a half barrel, apparently having joints from his head to his tail. His head formed something like the head of a rattle snake, but nearly as large as the head of a horse.”

The sighting in Gloucester, and others in the following weeks, spread through New England. The Salem-based Essex Register wrote, “Yesterday information was received in this town from Gloucester of the appearance of an unusual fish or serpent in the harbor. The letter represented, that the head of it, eight feet out of the water, was as large as the head of a horse, and great in length” The article quoted the letter: “‘[The animal] appears in joints like the wooden buoys in a net rope, almost as large as a barrel. Two muskets were fired at it, and appeared to hit it on the head, but without effect. It immediately disappeared, and in a short time was seen a little below, but in the dark we lost sight of him. It appears like a string of gallon kegs 100 feet long.’” The Boston Weekly Messenger ran two articles about the animal in late August, two in September, and one in October. “Monstrous Serpent,” the Aug. 21 headline read in the Messenger. Ferries out of Gloucester increased their scheduled trips for the many tourists who came.

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