A total of 22 individual Yellow-Legged Hornets (YLHs) were confirmed between January and early June 2025. Some of these hornets were captured during spring trapping led by the Animal and Plant Health Agency’s National Bee Unit (NBU) which was carried out for 8
weeks from early April 2025 to early June 2025. All these hornets were sent for further analysis.
There were 20 spring queens, one damaged individual that was likely a queen and one lone
worker.
Four of the spring queens were identified as likely offspring from 2 of the nests destroyed in 2024. These were the nest destroyed in Coldred on 25th October and the nest destroyed in Udimore on 1st November. These 2 nests were themselves likely offspring of nests destroyed in 2023.
This is the first evidence of a second generation of YLHs being produced in GB.
None of the other 16 queens were likely related to known nests from the previous year.
It is important to note that the numbers of second-generation hornets are very low and there have been good levels of monitoring by beekeepers and the NBU.
The NBU deployed 350 traps and a total of 5,500 trap checks were made.
This is not considered to be strong evidence of an established population and the NBU are continuing to take contingency action against YLH.
The evidence gathered from action taken during 2025 will be reviewed
overwinter.
