May ‘26 Members’ Yellow-legged Asian Hornet update

How many queens have been reported to date?

In total there has been 18 confirmed reports of queens up to 10th May 2026. Of those 6 have been found in our area –

2 - Nonnington 8/4 & 11/4 2 – Densole 8/4 & 3/5 1 – Coldred 1/5 1 – Folkestone 4/5

Additionally, 1 was found in Kingston and 1 in Sandwich which are covered by Canterbury and Thanet BKA respectively.

The fact that these were all reported by members of the public shows how important the on-going information campaign is to the eradication programme.

Given we are going into our 4th year, six is not a high number. One could argue that this is because we are not finding them. Whilst this might be true, it might also be the case, as I believe, that there are relatively few to be found. At this time queens will be establishing their embryo nests and so will be in a fixed position; as nest numbers grow the chances of finding that one hornet to start a track & trace becomes more likely.