The latest update from the Animal and Plant Health Agency’s National Bee Unit (NBU) is included below:

• The NBU received five further credible reports of Yellow-Legged Hornet (YLH) sightings this week.
• One sighting was reported in Shirley, Southampton on 22 May by a member of the public. The hornet was captured and killed.
• A report was received from New Romney, Kent on 22 May from householders.  The hornet was captured and killed.
• A householder reported and captured a hornet in Charing, Ashford, Kent on 24 May in a shed. The shed will be inspected further to check for a possible embryo nest.
• Two sightings were reported in Rother, East Sussex. One hornet was captured by a beekeeper, and the other was reported by a householder but escaped alive.
• The NBU / Bee Health policy team are not planning to take any further action, but local Yellow-Legged Asian Hornet teams may wish to monitor the area.

For information on previous yellow-legged hornet sightings this year, please visit the website of the National Bee Unit. 

We would be most grateful for your support in helping to raise awareness and encourage reporting of any further sightings. Free alert posters and ID sheets are available on request to help with awareness raising.

Any suspected sightings should ideally be reported via the Asian Hornet Watch app or the online reporting form. For further details on identification and reporting, please visit the yellow-legged hornet alert page.

A further update from the NBU / Bee Health policy team is included below for information:

In December 2025 Defra confirmed that the NBU will not be asked to carry out spring trapping for YLH in England in 2026. This decision was taken in response to the high number and geographic spread of later season nest finds during 2025. 

At the Bee Health Advisory Forum meeting held on 5th March, a Fera-based PhD student, gave a presentation about the work she had done during her PhD on kinship analyses of YLH nests found and destroyed in England from 2016 to 2024. The results from these analyses suggested that there is a limited established population of YLH in England. It is likely that there will be further evidence of kinship relatedness from the analyses of nests destroyed in 2025 (report to be submitted shortly). Nevertheless, Defra remain committed to taking action against YLH and have asked the NBU to take action to find and destroy nests later in the 2026 season. 

With these findings and the number of samples involved, it has been difficult for the laboratory to complete analyses of YLH to provide information in a timely manner for the field to adapt during the live response to YLH. As a result, Fera will not be commissioned to carry out genetic analyses of YLHs found in England in 2026. 

In England, previously the NBU followed up credible spring sightings and then arranged to collect the sample. However, as these samples will not be analysed, whilst contact will still be made with the reporter, no sample recovery will be undertaken. Please ask your members and Yellow Legged Asian Hornet teams to continue to report sightings so that we will have records of where and how many hornets have been sighted to inform later season developments. A summary of these findings will still be reported on a weekly basis via BHAF and updated on BeeBase.

Welsh government have commissioned the NBU to carry out spring trapping in Wales and will follow the previously established process. The position with respect to genetic analyses of YLHs found in Wales will be confirmed separately. 

Later in the season when nests are more likely to be present, Defra have asked the NBU to follow up credible sightings to find and destroy nests. 

We are very grateful for the actions that you take and support you provide in dealing with YLH.