So Saturday was my last full day in Jersey. After oversleeping and then getting lost I eventually made my way back to the baits I had set up in St Peter’s.
After all the action of the last few days today proved to be much slower and one for patience......a lot of patience !
 |
Top left in the picture this one flew by but didn’t stop ! |
I had no sign of hornets taking the bait, twice I had one fly by, have a quick look but disappear. After several hours I decided to spread the traps out over a much wider area, as much as 500 metres in each direction.
 |
Morel Farm 1622 ! |
Incidentally this took me to a lovely local house dating back to 1622, Morel Farm, lived in but owned by the National Trust. I called to let them know I’d set a bait near their entrance and left half an hour later after having had a little guided tour of the farm including its outbuildings containing an original cider press and several horse drawn carts still in amazing condition. How friendly people are on this island will be an abiding memory.
 |
Above; Cider press at Morel Farm,
and below; the horse drawn carts. |
Still no joy on the hornet front by half past three, after five and a half hours !....so I decided to call it a day...... being a persistent so and do I decided to have one last look at the original bait station.... and there it was, an Asian Hornet guzzling away, action stations !
 |
At last !...... and so it begins... ......again |
After taking all day I decided not to spook it so I let it fill itself up and fly off, trusting it would return, I waited and waited and waited for it to return and sure enough at last it did so I caught and marked it. This one proved to be quite far from home, every time she came and I timed her and I recorded flight times between 12 and 15 minutes which means the nest is likely 1.2 - 1.5 kilometres away in a SSW direction, 210 degrees to be precise !
 |
For 5 hours this butterfly was my only regular visitor |
I set up a couple of further bait stations, one 100 metres along its flight path with a better line of site, the other taking a bit of a gamble about a kilometre or more away, again in the line of flight as best as I could establish.
Unfortunately I won’t be able to see this one through as I’m off home today (Sunday), flying early afternoon, so I relayed all the information to the AH team and I’ve asked them to let me know how this one goes, having waited all day to trap a single hornet and get early distance and direction data I’m really keen to follow this one from afar !
 |
Finally, after five and a half hours, a hornet to catch and mark |
So it’s back home today! I’ve had a great and interesting week, learning a lot that sadly, I’m sure us beekeepers on the mainland are going to have to put into use one day. I also want to thank my hosts for the week, Pauline and Werner who put me up for free, cooked me great Paella and shared Werner’s favourite Austrian Beer imported from his homeland.
Good luck to everyone involved in the Asian Hornet fight, having witnessed it first hand I don’t think anyone outside the team fully understands and appreciates just how hard a dedicated few are working to keep this islands hornet invasion under control.