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?
Fully agree from Bavaria. Vespa crabro is 'besonders geschützt' under German law — destroying a nest without a permit brings a substantial fine — and it is also simply not necessary. I have had a hornet nest in a hollow apple tree twenty metres from my hives for three years. Colony losses: zero. They do come to lights at night, which frightens people, but they are far less aggressive than the common wasp when you leave the nest alone.
YorkshireNewbee · Sep 22, 2026
Useful, thanks. Dumb first-year question: how do I tell them apart from the Asian one if I see something big at the entrance in Yorkshire? I know the NBU wants velutina reported and I don't want to report the wrong hornet.
LavenderSophie · Sep 23, 2026
YorkshireNewbee — crabro is bigger (queens over 3 cm), with a lot of reddish-brown on the head and thorax and a yellow abdomen with brown bands. Velutina is smaller, almost black, with an orange face, one orange-yellow band near the tip of the abdomen and bright yellow leg tips — the 'yellow legs' are the giveaway. Behaviour differs too: crabro grabs one bee and leaves; velutina hovers in front of the entrance for hours, several at a time, and the colony stops flying. In Provence I would give a lot for a September with only crabro at my hives.
AlpineCarnica · Sep 23, 2026
LavenderSophie's description is spot on — the yellow legs and the hovering. I'd add: if you find a crabro nest in a shed or a bird box where it genuinely bothers people, contact your local nature authority; there are people who relocate them. Otherwise, enjoy watching them. They're magnificent.