Beekeeper near Scarborough warns people to lookout for Asian hornets
Sightings of Asian hornets are on the rise
We are hearing how Asian hornets could seriously damage honey bee colonies on the Yorkshire Coast.
Sightings of them are on the rise with one was spotted recently in Hull and there are warnings they can kill beehives.
Experts say they are of no greater risk to humans than our native species and a UN report is warning Asian Hornets are threatening many species across Europe.
David Hanson runs Bayview Bees in Flixton near Scarborough and produces honey. He said: "It's a hornet that comes from Asia. It's travelled its way from Europe, established itself in Northern France and it's actually smaller than your European hornet. It's got orange legs and on the third segment on its abdomen, that's an orange segment. They're quite distinctive to look at and they're an apex predator that kills honey bees.
"If a colony of Asian hornets sets up home within striking distance of one of our apiaries then it'll effectively shut that apiary down, not because of how many bees it'll kill but because it makes the bees afraid to come out and forage, they'll sit at the front of the hive and just be really scared, but Asian hornets do also kill a lot of bees.
"We move bees about quite a lot so at this time of the year for us at the moment wasps are quite a big pressure. We take bees up on to the North York Moors for the heather production and at the same time, the Asian hornet will be a big pressure at this time of the year because other insects forage as well for pollen and nectar.
"For a backyard beekeeper that keeps them in their back garden and doesn't travel them about, it could potentially decimate those colonies whereas for us, we move them about. If we had a big Asian hornet pressure at one site, I would be tempted to move them to another site where there was none.
"For me, the honey production side is 70 percent of my business. This year has been a poor crop anyway because of the weather, but if we had another summer like this where it's been poor weather and a massive Asian hornet problem as well, it could be really detrimental to us. We'd have to start looking at other options."