Our Project

 What is it?

• To protect our bees by preventing a ruthless predator from establishing itself in the UK

Why?

• Bees are essential for food production because they are key pollinators for our food plants and crops

The Predator

• The Asian Hornet, Vespa velutina, preys on many flying insects, especially bees
• The hornet kills bees and also lays seige to a hive, effectively starving all the inhabitants

 What's the Problem?

• The Asian Hornet is currently widespread in Europe
• If it can establish itself in the UK, the future of our bee population - and our food is seriously threatened

What are we proposing?

• If a hornet is spotted, the public can call their local beekepers, or use our Bee-P app to sound the alarm and alert us

• The hornet is caught - they are relatively easy to catch once you spot them

• We then tag it with a tiny LED light powered by a micro battery

• It's tracked back to its nest with a radio-controlled drone with a video camera

• We can then accurately locate the nest with an infra-red camera and let the pest-controllers deal with it appropriately - effectively neutralising the threat

We presented our findings to the North Herts Beekeepers Association in February and they were very interested in what we had to say.  We are going to continue working with them to help our native bees.

If you can help us to help the bees and to get to the World Festival in St Louis, please have a look at our ‘Sponsor Us’ page