How to protect honey bees this summer!

KentOnline / KMTV

Kristin Hawthorne visited a local apiary in Aylesford to have a go at beekeeping and learn more about Kent's honey bees. She also finds out how the invasive Yellow-legged Hornet threatens their survival and what you can do to stop it.   Presenter Abby Hook also speaks to Ian Campbell from the British Beekeeping Association.

Transcript

00:00Now, as a local apiary in Aylesford prepares for its first summer offering hands-on beekeeping experiences,

00:07our reporter Kristen Hawthorne went along to suit up and learn more about our county's honeybees.

00:12She also found out about a growing threat to our native pollinators, the invasive yellow-legged Asian hornet,

00:19and what we can all do to help protect the hive.

00:23How much do you know about the honeybee?

00:25Personally, I thought I knew a lot, but it turns out there's much more to the insect than I'd previously thought.

00:30This is just one sheet of honey, and it weighs about three pounds. It's quite heavy.

00:34The bees here, they are flying all around, but this is just a little bit of the honey that they produce every single day.

00:41But beyond the honey and the beeswax, the threat of yellow-legged hornets is a serious issue,

00:46as they can wipe out entire hives of our native honeybees.

00:50What they will do, they will hawk a colony of honeybees.

00:53So once they've found a colony, they will fly around in front of it, catching the honeybees as they come back to their...

00:59because obviously the honeybees are bringing stores and that, they will catch a honeybee on the wing.

01:04The wing muscles are the protein that they need to feed to their larvae.

01:07They don't eat the bees.

01:09They just need the protein to feed to their larvae that then grow into adult hornets.

01:15If you see in your loft, your shed, a little embryo nest, which is like a golf ball paper mache inside the...

01:23in your eaves of your roof and things like that, just have a good look at it.

01:26You know, that could be an Asian hornet queen, it could be a European hornet queen.

01:30If you see one, snap it and report it on the Asian Hornet Watch app.

01:34This is an Asian hornet and it's been newly named as the yellow-legged hornet.

01:37Each one of these can consume almost 13 kilograms of insects in its lifetime,

01:42whether that be wasps, honeybees or anything else.

01:45In comparison to European hornets, the yellow-legged hornets are slightly smaller and a lot darker in colour.

01:51So if you're looking out for them, those are the things to look for.

01:53In a yearly life cycle, a nest of Asian hornets can consume 12 and a half kilos of insects.

01:59That's honeybees, flies, butterflies, spiders, anything.

02:04So you imagine that, the weight of 12 bags of sugar in weight of insects per nest, per year.

02:12And yeah, they just decimate all the local, you know, insect life.

02:16So this trap is designed to allow anything back out that isn't an Asian hornet,

02:21like your wasps and your flies and stuff like that.

02:24The more queens we catch now, the less nests that are produced.

02:28But it's not just hornets causing problems,

02:30as habitat loss has forced some honeybees to build hives inside homes.

02:35Jason has been doing hive removals for four years now,

02:38but with honeybees losing more and more of their natural habitat,

02:41it's not surprising that 2025 has been a particularly busy year.

02:45So by becoming educated, planting things like lavender and thyme in your garden,

02:50and by trapping or reporting yellow-legged hornet sightings,

02:53we can slowly but surely help the bees live a little easier.

02:57Kristen Hawthorne for KMTV in Ealesford.

03:05Well, joining me on the line now is Ian Campbell from the British Beekeeping Association.

03:10Watching all those bees fly around makes me all itch and twitchy.

03:13But Ian, explain to us why they're just so important.

03:18The key thing with honeybees is pollination.

03:21They are fantastic pollinators.

03:23They live in large colonies.

03:25In the UK, most beekeepers are small hobby beekeepers,

03:29so we don't kind of move our bees around.

03:31Other species do a lot of pollination as well,

03:34but it's that pollination that's the real critical thing for your food security.

03:39And if you like things like coffee and chocolate and things like that,

03:43you need honeybees as well as a huge range of other crops.

03:47Yeah, and Kristen spoke about it in her piece there about the yellow-legged hornet.

03:50And just how worried should we be about the threat to honeybees?

03:55Is it getting worse?

03:56Does it change into the summer months?

03:57It certainly has.

04:00We've had yellow-legged hornets coming into the UK since 2016.

04:05And until 2023, it was at relatively low levels,

04:09and the problem was being managed by the National Bee Unit very effectively.

04:13In 2022, there was a huge surge year in France.

04:18In 2023, we picked up the consequences of that in England.

04:21And going from a handful of sightings, we went to 72 nests found in 2023.

04:28That number dropped down a little bit last year,

04:30largely because of the horrible, horrible spring and early summer we had.

04:34This year, the numbers we're seeing in the Channel Islands and places like that

04:38are at new record levels.

04:40And we're really worried that that's going to transfer to the UK.

04:44And Kent is right on the front line, unfortunately.

04:47Yeah, and the Garden of England, of course, too.

04:49Is that a particular concern?

04:52It will be.

04:53I mean, one of the impacts of yellow-legged hornets can be on fruit crops,

04:56on orchards, on pollination as it takes down the local biodiversity.

05:01So, yes, it can be a big concern to your area.

05:05And what can people do to not only, we heard in the report there,

05:08to take a picture of the Asian hornet if you see it and report it,

05:12but also taking it right back to the beginning,

05:13how can we promote honeybees in our area?

05:17How can we give them somewhere to make a home?

05:21I mean, with honeybees, they live in hives,

05:24and those hives are generally managed by beekeepers.

05:27There's a huge range.

05:29There's 270 species of bee in the UK.

05:32All of those need habitat, as you suggest, and they need forage.

05:37So, planting in your garden, however small,

05:39even if you've got a window box or a small patch of garden,

05:42just plant flowers, and that will make a really big difference.

05:47Can you take us through a few of the differences

05:49between the different types of bees that we have

05:52and honeybees and bumblebees?

05:54What are some of the key things that stick out?

05:56I imagine the list could go on and on,

05:57and I don't know if we have time for them all,

05:59but take us through some of those key things.

06:01So, when we're looking in our gardens,

06:03we know very quickly and clearly.

06:05We had a bit of an explanation there in that report,

06:07and we saw the different pictures of bees.

06:08But what are some of the different species that we'll see in Kent?

06:12So, there's one species of honeybee, Apis mellifera,

06:16and a lot of people confuse those with wasps

06:19because the shape and the size, people think, is very wasp-like,

06:22but it isn't that bright yellow colour that you see in wasps.

06:26What people often confuse is there are many species of bumblebees,

06:30about 24 species of bumblebee.

06:32Those live in small colonies, a couple of hundred bees.

06:35Those can be in your garden, those can be in the ground,

06:39and occasionally they're in buildings as well or outbuildings.

06:43Those will disappear by the end of the year.

06:45They're not really any issue to you.

06:47They don't often sting.

06:48And then there's all the solitary bees,

06:50which is well over 200 species,

06:52and they cover such a huge range and such a huge kind of diversity

06:56that, yeah, you're exactly right.

06:59We can't go through all those right now.

07:00I know you weren't there to obviously film that report with Kristen

07:04and see her beekeeping skills in action,

07:08but how do you think she did from just the videos you see?

07:11Have we got a beekeeper on our hands here at Kame TV?

07:13Absolutely.

07:14I mean, the main thing with working with bees is confidence,

07:18and you want to...

07:20Bees are sensitive to how you move.

07:23They don't like sudden movements.

07:25They don't like jerky movements.

07:26They don't like people waving their hands around.

07:28So if you're calm and just relaxed,

07:31and that's how sort of Kristen appeared, that's lovely.

07:36If you're just relaxed around the bees,

07:38they'll be fairly chilled around you.

07:39Yes, you did an excellent job, but we need her here reporting,

07:42so maybe in another life.

07:44Ian Cavill, thank you so much for your time today.

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