Killer of Honeybees 'Malbeol', Mass Capture Technology Developed in Chungnam

A technology capable of capturing large numbers of wasps, identified as killers of honeybees, has been developed in Chungnam Province. Wasps are also considered one of the three major causes of honeybee disappearance.

On the 15th, Chungnam Province announced that the Industrial Insect Research Institute of the Chungnam Agricultural Research and Extension Services (hereinafter referred to as the Institute) recently developed a 'composition for attracting Vespa velutina' and completed a patent application.

Wasps have been identified as one of the three major causes of honeybee damage, along with mites and bacterial diseases.

The Asian giant hornets captured using bait by the Industrial Insect Research Institute of the Chungnam Agricultural Research and Extension Services are fully contained inside the collection box. Provided by Chungnam Province

In particular, Vespa velutina, a type of wasp, has spread nationwide, causing direct damage to beekeeping farms. This wasp is an invasive pest species native to subtropical climates such as Southeast Asia and southern China, first discovered in Busan in 2003.

At the time of discovery, many bee experts predicted that Vespa velutina would not survive the winter (low temperatures) in Korea. However, contrary to expectations, the queen wasp successfully overwintered, spreading throughout the country and was designated as an ecological disturbance species in 2019.

The spread of Vespa velutina has been very rapid. Under similar environmental conditions, the number of wasps captured increased sharply from 30-40 in 2020 to 200-300 in 2021, and over 500 in 2022.

The problem is that the main prey of Vespa velutina is honeybees, with one wasp preying on an average of 10-15 honeybees per day. Vespa velutina is known to catch honeybees, extract the protein-rich thorax muscles for direct consumption, or provide them to the queen and larvae.

As the number of Vespa velutina increases, honeybee damage inevitably worsens. More importantly, these wasps have been found to invade (attack) hives with weak bee colonies, devastating the hives. This is why Vespa velutina is identified as one of the three major causes of the recently highlighted phenomenon of colony collapse disorder in honeybees.

The wasp attractant recently developed (patent applied) by the Institute is attracting attention for this reason.

This substance was developed by adding microorganisms that enhance wasp attraction to agricultural byproducts, fruit juices with sweet and sour tastes, and moisture retention aids, resulting in a significantly higher attraction effect for Vespa velutina compared to existing commercial products.

In fact, the Institute captured 300 Vespa velutina using a small trap (one unit) with this attractant from the 17th to the 22nd of last month. Considering that only 15 Vespa velutina were caught using a trap with commercial attractants during the same period, this represents up to a 20-fold increase in capture efficiency.

Especially, from April to the 6th of this month (30 times), the Institute captured a total of 2,376 Vespa velutina using six traps with the attractant, and in additional research with six traps enhanced for attraction, 4,569 Vespa velutina were caught from July 20th to the 6th of this month (17 times), confirming its effectiveness.

Based on this, the Institute expects that by using the developed attractant to capture queen wasps in spring and mass capture of worker wasps after June, the colony collapse disorder of honeybees can be minimized.

In particular, considering that one queen wasp can produce 3,000 to 5,000 offspring, the Institute explains that capturing queen wasps in spring may be more effective in controlling Vespa velutina.

Researcher Lee Jong-eun of the Institute said, “The attractant composition developed by the Institute is also evaluated to have excellent attraction effects on other wasp species such as Vespa mandarinia, Vespa crabro, and Vespa simillima,” and added, “We will actively promote mass production and distribution of the attractant composition to continuously control Vespa velutina nationwide.”

Meanwhile, honeybees are responsible for over 70% of global fruit and vegetable pollination and provide an economic value of about 50 trillion won annually to humans.

Conversely, many experts believe that if honeybees cannot properly perform nectar collection activities, the entire ecosystem could be threatened.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.