ANTSTORE World of Ants

[highered]

Yesterday at about 5pm I came across what looked like a bumble bee but wasn't quite right which was flying around. I looked closer at it and it was wasp yellow then I noticed it had red on its thorax and head, meaning it was a hornet. She was so big, the size of a bumble bee. she fly into a hole in the wooden gate and I trapped her inside. While I was wondering what to put her in as I didn't have a container on me and I didn't want to risk getting stung, unfortunately she got out and flew away but I am very pleased to have at least nearly caught a queen hornet, clearly she was looking for a new nest.

[Phasmid]

I found a hibernating hornet queen a while back. But I put it back a few weeks later because I couldn’t think of a suitable enclosure for these animals .

[highered]

Does anyone know how to keep wasps or hornets? I reckon that they would make a paper mache type nest in a covered basin at room temperature or heated. However I don't know what to give the queen in order for her to actually make the nest. Hopefully an enclosed area like a small box would do initially, but later on the workers would probably want to make the paper mache nest. Any ideas anyone please?
PS when I say she was the size of a bumble bee I mean it, she was the exact size and shape of a bumble bee, only her colourings were completely different.

[adam james]

Hello Highered , keeping a hornet from scratch would be impossible as we can not control where she chooses to nest. The queen would need acess to the outside to collect her materials to build a nest. The most chance you have is to try and find an already established nest while it has a few new workers and take this. The queen would be saftly inside and when you put it where you want and make sure they have acess outside via a tube etc then they will settle down and oriantate themselvs to that spot.

Regards

Adam

[AndyB]

damn, i wouldn't think about taking a hornet nest and transfering if it. thats just plain painful

[pooball879]

you no you could buy a suit that they can't sting through and use a fish tank then get a glass cover for it then drill a hole that goes to the outside then get a tube to connect it with. It's just a theory but it could work though i have never done it myself. witch i keep Myrmica rubra and Lasius niger.

[thecowmaster]

I once was in the country side in a camping. We passed next to a hornet nest and one friend of mine had the beautiful idea to throw a stone to that next.

And a BIG BIG swarm of hornets went flying, we started to run down the hill. Lucky no one got sting.



Well I really prefer not to have Hornets as pets.

Good luck with that

[Messorus]

In America are special internet forums about keeping wasps and hornets, take a look at ,,poisionpets" or some forum as that, in America there are experts for keeping blue jackets of genus Polistes.. I was trying keeping this ,,not true wasps" but queens wanted just to went out on the sun, so I left them into nature and stopped all trying of keeping them.. But Polistes are not so aggresive as real wasps of Vespula(but V. vulgatis isn´t aggresive and easy keepd also), almost P. fuscatus and others...: Hyperlinks sind nur für registrierte Nutzer sichtbar This Maculifrons is really experienced and skilled wasp keeper, it´s a pity that Hymenoptera in Slovakia are ,,Real Childs of Sun" as myrmecologiest and entomologiest says.....