Asian hornets: how to identify and report a sighting

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Is it an Asian hornet? The 10-second check

Yellow-legged hornet (Vespa velutina) - what to look for:

• Dark, almost black body with a single yellow-orange band near the tail (the fourth segment)
• Bright yellow leg ends - the giveaway that names it
• Orange face when seen head-on
• Smaller than our native hornet - the NBU gives yellow-legged hornet workers at about 25 mm against about 30 mm for a European hornet worker 2

Our native European hornet (Vespa crabro) is bigger and much yellower. It has a striped, wasp-like abdomen and brown legs. It is a useful native insect, so there is no need to kill it.

When in doubt, take a photo rather than swat. Working out which one it is from a photo is exactly what the reporting system is for.

Where you will see them

At an apiary, the sight to know is hawking. A hornet hovers dead still in front of a hive entrance and picks off returning foragers.

Away from apiaries, look on flowering ivy in late summer and autumn, around fallen fruit, and near wasp traps. Nests start small in spring, often low down in a hedge or a shed. The big summer nest goes high in a tree.

How to report a sighting

Report it with a photo through the form GOV.UK points you at, which is run by the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology. 1 Sightings are followed up, and where a nest is found it is dealt with by the authorities rather than by beekeepers.

One change worth knowing, because it alters what you should expect back. From 2026 hornets and nests are no longer routinely sent for laboratory analysis, so you may not get a laboratory confirmation the way earlier guidance described. That does not change what you should do: photograph it and report it.

Do not try to deal with a nest yourself. It is dangerous, and a disturbed colony moves, which makes the nest harder to find.

What to do at your own apiary

• Photograph first, report second - a blurry photo is still far better than none.
• Note the details. How many, and where exactly. For example: hawking at hive 2, on the ivy, or in a trap. Say if you think there is a nest nearby.
• Keep a log for each apiary. A pattern of sightings over several weeks is the evidence that helps find a nest. It also tells you which apiary needs a monitoring trap.
• Think about a monitoring trap in spring and late summer. It is there to spot arrivals early, not to control them, because trapping will not stop hornets. The NBU’s warning about traps killing other native insects applies here just as much as it does to wasp trapping. Check the trap often, and let everything that is not a hornet go.

Reduce the pressure on your colonies

Where hornets are active, reduce your hive entrances so the guards have a smaller doorway to defend. Do not leave combs or feed out in the open. Keep colonies strong, because hawking hits weak colonies hardest.

And keep reporting. The years when nests were found early were the years reports came in fast.