Overview
- New Zealand has confirmed 43 queen yellow-legged hornets this summer, with detections confined to Glenfield and Birkdale on Auckland’s North Shore.
- Biosecurity crews are attaching sub‑160 mg radio transmitters to foraging workers and using thermal‑imaging drones, helping track hundreds of workers and destroy three nests in the past three weeks.
- Public vigilance has generated roughly 9,700–10,000 notifications, with more than 500 beekeepers searching an 11 km zone and up to 170 staff deployed on the response.
- Two UK specialists have joined New Zealand operations, and the programme is moving through intensive trapping and tracking ahead of a February Vespex baiting phase.
- A dead yellow-legged hornet nest found near Wrexham marks the first confirmed nest in Wales, prompting a National Bee Unit response after the UK recorded 544 sightings and 162 nests destroyed last year.