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| -Signs, Portents, and the Weather- |
| Hornets hit France and could reach Britain |
| 2007-02-21 |
| Swarms of giant hornets renowned for their vicious stings and skill at massacring honeybees have settled in France. And there are now so many of the insects that entomologists fear it will just be a matter of time before they cross to Britain. Global warming has largely been blamed for the survival and spread of the Asian Hornet, Vespa velutina, which is thought to have arrived in France from the Far East in a consignment of Chinese pottery in late 2004. Thousands of football-shaped hornet nests are now dotted all over the forests of Aquitaine, the south-western region of France hugely popular with British tourists. "Their spread across French territory has been like lightning," said Jean Haxaire, the entomologist who originally identified the new arrival. He said he had recently seen 85 nests in the 40-odd miles which separate the towns of Marmande and Podensac, in the Lot et Garonne department where the hornets were first spotted. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #18 It's the end times---now all we need are locusts and plagues. |
| Posted by: Al Aska Paul, Resident Imam 2007-02-21 23:15 |
| #17 Is there no BUG SPRAY in France ? |
| Posted by: J.D. Lux 2007-02-21 20:19 |
| #16 BUGZILLAS 'tis Dubya's fault. HONEYBEES are females and all females [e.g. Islamist/Russian/ Iranian women refusing to have kiddies]refuse to do their thing until Hillary becomes POTUS??? |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2007-02-21 20:00 |
| #15 There's an easy solution to this, but I don't think flamethrowers are legal in France. |
| Posted by: Charles 2007-02-21 16:33 |
| #14 It had to be said. |
| Posted by: Excalibur 2007-02-21 16:29 |
| #13 I for one welcome our insect overlords. |
| Posted by: Excalibur 2007-02-21 16:28 |
| #12 Mike N said: #7 Sooo, can France destroy these things are will fighting them only make more? I'm starting to see a pattern with Asian insects. Those of us in the States have a bazillion of these silly ass Asian lady bug things that are everywhere all the time. Bugs, fish, Bird flu, people... It looks like everything Asain spreads like wildfire. It works basically the same way for any invasive species no matter how it gets to wherever it's invading. The local ecology simply is not adapted to compete against the invader which has no local competitors. Therefore the natives generally lose and are forced out of the ecological niches. Lady bugs, for example, were introduced to control certain pests. They expanded out of the introduction areas into other areas and out competed the local fauna. Japanese kudzu was introduced into the US and promoted as a ground cover. It now covers something like 8-10 million hectares of the southeastern USA and is considered a pest plant. Eucalyptus trees were introduced to provide for cheap hardwoods. They expanded out of their introduction areas and provide neither cheap nor hard woods. People have purposefully introduced invasive species into California, just as an example, due to sheer malicious mischief or a sense that one species just won;t make a difference. It can and does. There are probably less than 15 species which prey on eucalyptus in California and, in California ecalyptus groves the species diversity is markedly decreased over what you would find in non-eucalyptus groves (mainly due to the amount of dross, or leaf litter, that ecalyptus drop, their chemical defenses, and the fact that they require enormous amounts of water). Invasive species are real and a very real threat to native ecolonies and economies (and the subject of my new book which hit the 40% mark the other day). |
| Posted by: FOTSGreg 2007-02-21 15:45 |
| #11 OK, so # 4 and 5 beat me. Dammit. And echo what RD sez: If its ugly its Ironworks. If its double ugly, its a Prowler.....(inside Grumman joke) |
| Posted by: USN, Ret. 2007-02-21 14:47 |
| #10 I just put it down to global swarming. |
| Posted by: Fred 2007-02-21 14:44 |
| #9 If your bowel movement changes - Global Warming! |
| Posted by: GolfBravoUSMC 2007-02-21 14:24 |
| #8 Japanese bees know how to deal with giant hornets, euroean ones don't. So, JFM, your insects are like your military or national will to live? *ducks* |
| Posted by: BA 2007-02-21 13:33 |
| #7 Sooo, can France destroy these things are will fighting them only make more? I'm starting to see a pattern with Asian insects. Those of us in the States have a bazillion of these silly ass Asian lady bug things that are everywhere all the time. Bugs, fish, Bird flu, people... It looks like everything Asain spreads like wildfire. |
| Posted by: Mike N. 2007-02-21 12:43 |
| #6 Global warmingn idiocy. Japan's giant hornet has prospered in climates similar to Europe's for millenia. If hornetrs had expande through Siberia that they previously were unable to croos then you couls have put it on global warming but they came by ship or plane!!! BTW beehive oweners have problem: european bees are sompletely unable to defend against them. I have seen a video where no more than thirty japanese hornets massacred an entire beehive and just lost four or five of their own. Japanese bees know how to deal with giant hornets, euroean ones don't. |
| Posted by: JFM 2007-02-21 12:13 |
| #5 And people complain about the F/A-18 having short legs! Maybe these are the new Super Hornets... the last pre-production team at Grumman is the ugly team, always somthin ugly added to any Grumman Aircraft. |
| Posted by: RD 2007-02-21 11:58 |
| #4 Hornets hit France and could reach Britain And people complain about the F/A-18 having short legs! Maybe these are the new Super Hornets... |
| Posted by: SteveS 2007-02-21 11:49 |
| #3 Wikipedia sez: In Japan's mountain villages, the hornets are valued as part of the basic diet. They are eaten deep fried or as a kind of hornet sashimi Hmm, Ima thinking of a solution that could only work in France... |
| Posted by: Carl in N.H. 2007-02-21 11:47 |
| #2 I blame world trade in Chinese pottery for these devils!!! NO BEES FOR POTS!!! |
| Posted by: AlanC 2007-02-21 11:37 |
| #1 SURRENDER NOW...BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE!!! Hornet's.....why do they hate us???? |
| Posted by: ARMYGUY 2007-02-21 11:15 |