Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether his Department is taking steps to help eradicate Asian hornets from the UK before spring 2024.

In 2023 the National Bee Unit (NBU) – part of the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) - located and destroyed 72 Asian hornet nests. The NBU has been taking action against Asian hornet since 2016 and has a fine-tuned response. They frequently find a nest within a day of an initial sighting being reported. Previously the highest number of nests the NBU had dealt with in one year was 4. Nevertheless, the NBU drew on further resources from wider APHA to provide an effective response to this unprecedented number of Asian hornet nests.

Asian hornet is inactive over winter, normally between November and March. During this period any new queens released from nests in the autumn hibernate. Only a proportion of these will survive and go onto create new nests in spring. Therefore, no further contingency action will be taken until the spring when the hornets start becoming active.

We are developing further plans for 2024 which will be announced prior to the spring. The NBU will continue to respond to credible sightings of Asian hornet and eradicate any nests that are located.