"Seven stitches kill a horse, three kill a man" - this old saying still haunts many people's minds, but it's still wrong. Hornets - the largest living species of wasps - look dangerous, but are mostly harmless. The big buggers would rather flee than mess with humans - unless they get too close to the hornet's nest.

Hornets are significantly larger than wasps, but usually also much more peaceful

Table of Contents

Show all
  1. the essentials in brief
  2. Hornets are protected
  3. Look
  4. way of life
  5. drive away hornets
  6. Can hornets sting?
  7. frequently asked Questions
  8. Like wasps, do hornets also like sweets?
  9. What are hornets good for?
  10. Do hornets have natural enemies?
  11. What can you do about hornet droppings?
  12. Are there other hornet species?
  13. Why do hornets throw out their larvae?

    14. the essentials in brief

    • Hornets are protected and must not be hunted or killed.
    • Hornet nests may not be destroyed and may only be relocated by a professional if there is a good reason.
    • Hornets can be kept away with clove or citrus oil.
    • Hornets are carnivores and therefore very useful as pest controllers.

    Hornets are protected

    Many people are afraid of hornets and are therefore tempted to kill the animals and destroy their nests. However, both are strictly forbidden, because the insects are under nature protection. According to the regulations of both the Federal Species Protection Ordinance (BArtSchV) and the Federal Nature Conservation Act (BNatSchG), you may neither catch nor kill hornets, and their nests may not be touched either.

    A specialist from the local environmental agency or the fire brigade may only relocate the nest upon request and if there is a legitimate reason (e.g. allergy sufferers and/or small children in the family, nest right next to the main entrance). If you don't follow these rules, you risk a high fine: Depending on the federal state, the willful destruction of a hornet's nest can cost you up to EUR 50,000 and criminal proceedings.

    In any case, hornets, unlike wasps, are rather peaceful, so that you can secure a possible nest with just a few measures for the animals as well as for you and your family. This also includes the right rules of conduct.

    Can you drive away hornets? the essentials in brief

    • catch hornets: Catching and injuring hornets is prohibited.
    • kill hornets: The targeted killing of hornets - even of individual animals - is also prohibited.
    • Remove hornets nest: Never remove and/or relocate a hornet's nest yourself. This may only be done by a qualified expert upon application to the competent authority. Cost: around 200 to 300 EUR, which you have to pay yourself.
    • Drive hornets out of the apartment: turn off the lights in the evening and open the windows wide
    • Prevent hornets in the apartment: Attach insect screens to doors and windows, close popular entry points in wooden paneling (e.g. on balconies and terraces), in wooden sheds and in roller shutter boxes
    • home remedies for defense: Hornets do not like the smell of lemons and cloves, so as a preventive measure, you can cut open lemons and stud them with cloves and lay them out. Alternatively, clove oil also helps.

    Look

    The hornet belongs to the wasp family

    Hornets are the largest genus of wasps (lat. Vespa) and have only been found in one species in Germany so far: the hornet (lat. Vespa crabro) was threatened with extinction until the 1970s and was long on the red list of endangered species. In the meantime, however, the population has recovered, so that hornets are now more common locally. Hornets grow significantly larger than their smaller relatives, the wasps, and also have distinctive reddish-brown and yellow stripes. However, coloration can vary among individuals without being a separate subspecies.

    How big do hornets get?

    The hornet queen reaches a length of up to 35 millimeters, but can only be seen outdoors until around June / early July. The much smaller workers reach a length of up to 25 millimeters.

    Distinguish between bees, wasps and hornets

    The table below shows you how to tell bees, wasps and hornets apart based on their body length and coloration. Incidentally, contrary to a widespread misconception and numerous depictions in children's books, for example, bees are not striped yellow and black. In fact, this is a typical wasp coloration, which is why Maya the Bee is actually a wasp (and not a honey bee!).

    honey bees common wasp hornet
    Latin name Apis mellifera Vespula vulgaris Vespa crabro
    genus Honey bees (Apis) Short-headed wasps (Vespula) Hornets (Vespa)
    family Real bees (Apidae) Fold wasps (Vespidae) Fold wasps (Vespidae)
    body length queen 15 to 18 millimeters up to 20 millimeters 23 to 35 millimeters
    body length workers 11 to 13 millimeters 11 to 14 millimeters 18 to 25 millimeters
    Body length drones 13 to 16 millimeters 13 to 17 millimeters 21 to 28 millimeters
    coloring Basic color brown with striped abdomen yellow and black striped striped reddish brown and yellow

    confusion

    In nature, mimicry is widespread as a protective mechanism, which is why not every red-brown striped and growling insect is actually a hornet. There is a whole range of insects whose appearance has adapted to the large predator and can therefore easily be confused with it. This is probably because these species are less likely to fall prey to a predator (such as a real hornet).

    These insect species look very similar to hornets:

    • Median wasp (Dolichovespula media): about the size of a hornet worker, but the dorsal plate is yellow-black and contains no reddish parts
    • Hornet hawkmoth (Sesia apiformis): common butterfly in Central Europe, whose adult animals reach a wingspan of between 30 and 45 centimetres, have transparent wings and are yellow-black striped
    • Macaw sawflies (Cimbicidae): various species of wasp-like hymenoptera, which are between 15 and 28 millimeters long, marked in bright yellow, brown-red or black, depending on the species
    • Hornet hoverflies (Volucella zonaria): Fly species from the hoverfly family, 16 to 22 millimeters long and clearly red-yellow-black banded

    background

    Hornets are nocturnal

    Unlike wasps and bees, hornets are nocturnal and hunt even in the deepest darkness. Incidentally, this is also the reason why the animals sometimes feel attracted by artificial light - like all nocturnal insects, they fly in the direction of light sources such as in living rooms or in the garden. So hornets can be easily scared away at night or not attracted at all by simply switching off the light.

    way of life

    Hornets are very social animals, living in a communal colony of around 300 to 700 animals. This consists of a queen, who begins building the nest and laying eggs in the spring, as well as the workers responsible for providing food, caring for the brood and later expanding the nest. The male drones, on the other hand, hatch later in the year and are solely responsible for mating with the young queens. The way of life and the life cycle of the hornet is very similar to that of the bumblebee, which again are not hunters.

    How old do hornets get?

    Like bumblebees, hornets don't get very old either: as adult animals, the worker bees have an average life expectancy of around 30 to 40 days, after the development from egg to pupation, during which they go through five different stages, takes around five weeks. The drones also only reach an age of a few weeks and then die off after mating. Only the queens can live for up to a year, and they are the only ones to hibernate and, depending on the weather, leave their winter quarters around April or May and start building the nest. All other animals in the hornet colony die by October at the latest. Towards the end of each season, the old queen purposefully produces up to 200 eggs, from which the young queens eventually hatch. Only these overwinter, while the old queen is gradually neglected by her workers and finally dies in the fall.

    You don't have to fight hornets, you just have to be able to wait. In the fall, the nest finally empties itself.

    Where do hornets hibernate?

    The young queens and the drones finally fly out to mate in late summer/autumn. The males then die while the females look for a sheltered place to overwinter. To do this, they like to dig themselves into loose soil, but they also use dead or rotten wood. The animals wake up from their hibernation from mid-April to early May and then go in search of a suitable nesting site.

    Hornets hibernate in the ground or in rotten wood

    How and where do hornets build their nests?

    In the wild, hornets look for natural cavities in the wood of rotten trees, but as cultural followers, the animals increasingly use replacement cavities near human settlements. Here they also prefer wooden caves, which they can find, for example, in the paneling of walls, in wooden sheds, but also in nest boxes and bat boxes. Cozy places such as roller blind boxes are also very popular. In addition, the animals sometimes build in very bizarre places, for example in old rubber boots that have been left in the garden.

    The queen starts building her nest as early as May and uses rotten wood, which she chews well. From this she builds the first cells, in which she lays eggs immediately after completion and takes care of the brood in them. A queen creates about one or two such cells per day, so that the first workers usually hatch in June. Until then, the queen was solely responsible for building the nest, caring for the brood and providing the larvae with food. Now the newly hatched workers take on these tasks. From this point on, the queen is only responsible for laying eggs and takes care of herself.

    Drones and young queens finally hatch between September and October. The old queen and the remaining workers then die, leaving the nest deserted and empty by autumn. By the way, hornets do not use an old nest a second time, but will be happy to build a new one next year.

    What do hornets eat?

    Hornets prefer to eat other, smaller insects

    Hornets are insect hunters and do not feed on flower nectar like wasps or bees. Nevertheless, the large animals can often be found in the immediate vicinity of well-visited flowering plants, as this is where they wait for their prey. A colony of hornets eats an average of half a kilogram of insects per day. The most commonly hunted species are:

    • Flies (Diptera) such as house flies, meat flies, blow flies and gold flies
    • Brakes and calf kickers
    • wasps
    • honey bees

    About 90 percent of the prey consists of flies and horseflies, and wasps are also caught more frequently. For this reason, wasps are few in gardens where there is a hornet's nest - the hornets keep the population small here and the sugar robbers away from your summer coffee table. Honey bees, on the other hand, only catch hornets occasionally - contrary to the assumption of many beekeepers - so that the damage to bee colonies remains minimal. Sometimes bumblebees are among the prey of hornets, but only rarely.

    The larvae mainly feed on the protein-rich food. Adult hornets, on the other hand, prefer tree and plant sap, which is why you can often see them nibbling on wood (e.g. lilacs are particularly popular) and fallen fruit.

    drive away hornets

    When the queen is looking for a nesting place in the spring, she likes to get lost in apartments or in the house. In this case, simply open two opposite windows so that the animals can find their way back out through the draught. At night, hornets find their way all by themselves as soon as they switch off the light sources - which usually have lured the animals here - and open the windows wide. However, fly screens installed in good time on the doors and windows reliably keep hornets and other insects away.

    This old household remedy also helps to keep the big buzzers out of the living room:

    1. Slice a fresh lemon.
    2. Place the slices on a small plate.
    3. Sprinkle them with some cloves.
    4. Place the plates directly in front of windows, doors and on the patio or balcony table.

    Lemon with cloves is said to keep hornets and other insects away

    Incidentally, this well-tried remedy not only reliably keeps hornets away, but also wasps. In order not to attract the animals, you should also remove fallen fruit in the garden promptly and always cover food and drinks containing sugar outdoors.

    Properly deal with hornets - avoid stings

    Although hornets are considered less aggressive and tend to flee rather than sting, the following precautions should be observed when near a nest:

    • Maintain a safety distance of at least two (preferably more) meters
    • avoid frantic and quick movements near hornets
    • Avoid vibrations (e.g. from mowing the lawn).
    • Do not blow on or breathe on hornets
    • Do not impede hornets in their flight path, especially near the entrance hole

    If you follow these rules, a peaceful coexistence of humans and hornets is possible - without any stings.

    Remove hornets nest

    However, this coexistence is not possible or only with difficulty if the hornet colony has chosen a very unfavorable place for nest building. Therefore, in exceptional cases, removal and resettlement of the same is possible, although you are not allowed to carry out this measure yourself! Anyone who removes a hornet's nest themselves and without permission can be fined up to EUR 50,000, depending on the federal state.

    If a hornet's nest is to be removed, it is best to proceed as follows:

    • Submit an application to the environmental agency or the nature conservation authority in your district or city.
    • Many of the applications are available online, where they can be downloaded and printed out.
    • After the application, a specialist will come to your home to check the actual risk from the hornet's nest.
    • If this is the case, the application is approved and the nest can be removed by an exterminator, a specialist from the fire brigade or a beekeeper.

    The costs of around EUR 100 to 300 must be borne by you as the applicant. If the application is not approved, you can secure it yourself with the help of screens or fly wire and thus reduce any danger. However, you can remove hornet nests that have been abandoned in autumn yourself; they will not be occupied again the following year anyway.

    The following article shows how a relocation of a hornet's nest works:

    youtube

    Prevent hornets

    So that the animals do not even settle in the spring, you should close any loopholes such as boarding, false ceilings and roller shutter boxes well. Instead, you can offer the insects - after all, very useful for nature - a special box of hornets in a quiet, secluded part of the garden.

    digression

    Can you fumigate hornets?

    Since hornets are protected, you must not fumigate them. If you are caught or told on by a neighbor, you can be prosecuted and punished with a fine of up to EUR 50,000. Spraying with insect spray or vinegar is also not permitted.

    Can hornets sting?

    According to old folk wisdom, hornet stings are considered to be particularly poisonous, so that life is said to be threatened after just a few stings. This assumption is wrong, because hornet venom is no more dangerous than wasp or bee venom - especially since a bee releases significantly more venom than a hornet in a single sting. A hornet bite is no more dangerous than any other insect bite. In terms of pain, such a sting is often described as more painful than that of a wasp or bee. However, this may be subjective, as the large insect is also perceived as more threatening. In fact, hornets are fairly peaceful and unaggressive animals, and will only sting if you get too close to their nest or corner them.

    How often can hornets sting?

    Hornet stings have no barb

    Since hornets, unlike bees, do not have a barb on their stinger, it does not get stuck in the skin. In principle, a hornet can sting several times, since they then live on and do not die. But to prevent this from happening in the first place, always keep a safe distance, especially from the nest, and do not make any hectic movements near a hornet. Don't even try to catch or grab the animal with your hand.

    What to do after a hornet bite

    Unless you have been bitten in the mouth or throat or are allergic to wasp or hornet venom, you do not need to see a doctor. The swelling subsides after a few days and can easily be treated with a cooling gel from the pharmacy. However, no further measures are necessary.

    digression

    Allergic reaction after a hornet bite - act correctly

    It only becomes dangerous if you are allergic to the hornet venom, which is rare and affects an estimated two to four percent of the population. However, people with a wasp venom allergy often also react to the hornet venom, as the compositions of both substances are very similar. People who are allergic to bee venom, on the other hand, can breathe a sigh of relief: Since the venom of the honey bee differs chemically from that of wasps and hornets, cross allergies are not to be feared here.

    Typical symptoms of an allergic reaction are:

    • Circulatory problems immediately or shortly after the sting
    • unusually severe swelling and rash
    • these can also be distant from the puncture site
    • Shortness of breath and dizziness indicate an allergic shock

    If you have allergic symptoms, you should consult a doctor who will treat you with anti-allergic drugs - mostly preparations containing cortisone. The symptoms should then improve quickly. Only if there are signs of an allergic shock (circulatory problems through to fainting, shortness of breath) should the emergency doctor be called immediately, as this is an acute danger to life.

    frequently asked Questions

    Like wasps, do hornets also like sweets?

    Although hornets primarily hunt other insects, they do like sweet plant and tree saps. However, the animals rarely go to sugary human food and when they do, then mostly to hunt the wasps that are there. However, they find fallen fruit very tempting, which is why you must always be careful when picking up apples and pears that have fallen on the ground - there could be hornets in them.

    What are hornets good for?

    The big hunters are very useful animals in the garden, as they hunt many pests and pests - especially flies. In addition, the wasp population is often low in regions with many hornets.

    Do hornets have natural enemies?

    The caterpillars of the bumblebee nest moth (Aphomia sociella) are brood predators and feed on the clutches and larvae of the hornets. The caterpillars of the butterfly from the moth family are active between August and April, during which they - like the hornet queen - overwinter.

    What can you do about hornet droppings?

    Hornets make a lot of "dirt", which usually accumulates under the nest and can cause damage. To prevent this, you can place a bucket or other container under the hornet's nest to catch the animals' droppings.

    Are there other hornet species?

    The Asian hornet (lat. Vespa velutina) has been spreading in Europe for several years. This species, originally native to East Asia, was probably brought here with imported goods and is finding ideal living conditions thanks to the increasingly mild winters. The queens of the species can be up to three centimeters long and thus smaller than the native hornet species. However, the Asian giant hornet (Vespa mandarinia), which can be up to six centimeters long, has not yet been verified in Europe. The oriental hornet (Vespa orientalis), on the other hand, is mainly found in southern Europe.

    Why do hornets throw out their larvae?

    When hornets throw their larvae out of the nest, they are dead or non-viable larvae. This can be observed in particular in autumn, when they could no longer pupate in time anyway.

    tips

    Clove oil is also a great defense against hornets. To do this, you can put a few drops of the essential oil in a fragrance lamp and place it on the table outside or in the apartment. In addition, the agent has a pleasant side effect and also keeps hungry wasps away.

Category:

Animals in the garden