No Asian hornet sightings for six weeks

But the situation is totally different in Jersey, where the 24th nest of the year was discovered last week in St Helier and destroyed.

The spokesman said there had been a number of sightings in Guernsey this year.

‘Including Sark and Jethou, there have been a total of 24 confirmed Asian hornet sightings this year,’ he said.

‘The last of these was six weeks ago when a single worker hornet was trapped by a beekeeper around the Forest Road area.

‘There have been possible, but not yet confirmed, hornet sightings from members of the public in three locations, which could have been hornets out foraging.

‘Bait stations have been set up by our field and research officer in the three locations to determine if any hornets are attracted to the traps.

‘If hornets were to return to the traps, it would indicate that there was a nest nearby, allowing the worker hornets to be tracked in order to reveal the location of their nest.

‘To date, no hornets have been found using the bait stations and no secondary nests have been found.’

Most of the Jersey nests were smaller, primary nests, which were built in the spring. But recently they have found five larger secondary nests in tall trees and buildings, which were larger than primary nests and more active.

The States spokesman said Asian hornets thrive in hot weather.

‘During prolonged periods of hot weather, the hornets will take advantage of the longer summer days and actively hunt down and forage on their prey such as honeybees, butterflies, wasps and flies,’ they said.

‘They will also need to find water, which they collect by landing on water weeds and lily pads in ponds. Water is really important for hornets as their nests are continually being expanded during the summer months.

‘The worker hornets will seek out fence panels, sheds and posts, using their jaws to collect wood shavings which they convert to papier-mache by pulping it with saliva and water. This is then shaped with their mouth parts to form the nest structure.’

The Guernsey Asian hornet team handles information from the public.

As soon as positive sightings are confirmed, the team will know where to start looking for nests. From evidence that has been collated over the last three years, there does not appear to be a pattern and nests could turn up anywhere.

During this year’s spring queening project, which took place in April and May, 10 queen hornets were caught in locations randomly spread across the island.

At this time of year, nests are expected to be close to the size of a football.

These would be secondary nests, containing much larger numbers of hornets.

It is likely that there are nests out there of which the team is not aware.

n Anything suspicious should be reported to the Asian hornet team by emailing asianhornet@gov.gg or calling 234567.