European hornets (Vespa crabro) picking bees off my hive entrances — real threat, or leave them alone?

Every September the same visitor shows up in my Tyrolean apiary: Vespa crabro, the European hornet, big reddish-brown thing the size of my thumb. Right now there are two or three working my stands most afternoons — they sit near the entrance, grab a returning forager, and fly off to butcher it on a branch. The bees don't like it, but they carry on. I post this because every year a newer beekeeper messages me in a panic wanting to destroy the nest. In 18 years I have never lost a colony to crabro. They take a few dozen bees a day from a colony of 30,000, mostly old or slow ones, the nest dies with the first hard frosts and only the mated queens overwinter. They're protected in Germany and in several Austrian states, and they eat a lot of wasps and flies. The one to fear is the yellow-legged Asian hornet, Vespa velutina, which hawks in numbers and shuts colonies down. Different animal. Where are the rest of you on crabro — tolerated, or do you do something?