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We are asking as many people as possible and not just beekeepers, look out for Yellow Legged Hornets during the last week of June
Lancashire Beekeepers was founded in 1882 which makes The Lancashire & North West Beekeepers' Association one of the oldest beekeeping associations in England. With eight branches, registered charity status (no 506167) and affiliation to the British Beekeepers Association (BBKA), our popular and active beekeeping association spans the county of Lancashire and parts of Merseyside and Greater Manchester with nearly 900 members.
Our region is broken down into eight local branches. For full details of what's happening at your nearest beekeeping branches please visit your local branch's website to obtain their latest meeting and event dates.
Members of the public are welcome to attend our meetings to see what's involved; just contact the relevant Branch secretary to confirm the meeting details. In addition many of our branches run beginners' beekeeping courses with experts on hand to offer plenty of hints and tips for budding beekeepers.
Our Spring Convention is held each year and is one of the highlights of the beekeeping year, members from all eight branches meet up and enjoy informative and captivating lectures on beekeeping from internationally renowned beekeepers.
Then in October we are holding a honey show to showcase the best examples of products from the beehive.
Honey Bee Health Course and Assessment
Starting on Monday 5th February in person, in Preston, there will be 3 further theory sessions, fortnightly after this and then practicals in the Branch Apiaries in the Spring. Anyone wishing to attend should have passed the Basic Assessment and have kept bees for at least 3 years.
The syllabus can be found on the BBKA website Honey Bee Health Syllabus
To book a place please contact Viki Cuthbertson County Education Co-ordinator on 07780 715803 or v_cuthbertson@hotmail.co.uk
If you believe that you may have a swarm of honey bees then please take a look at our Swarm Help page.
We are asking as many people as possible and not just beekeepers, look out for Yellow Legged Hornets during the last week of June, as part of the Invasive Species Week.
(BBKA has some great resources available for schools to help educate children about Invasive Species https://www.bbka.org.uk/News/invasive-species-week Teachers can sign up there, please pass on the link to any teachers you know!)
Monitoring couldn’t be simpler, just watch any source of sugar or nectar for around an hour or so, and report using the eR2 YLH monitoring App as we did in previous years. If you don’t have the app then please contact your branch YLH coordinator email with the location you will be monitoring, postcode or what3words, and they can allocate the area to you and provide a link to the App.
Report the monitoring activity, date and time. Nil results are important, so we can build a historical database of monitoring activity.
Many people are putting the monitoring station on a kitchen windowsill or somewhere in the garden whilst gardening etc. Once a YLH finds a food source it will return on a regular basis, timings depend on how long it feeds for and the distance to its colony.
For reporting an actual sighting, or wish to confirm if something might be a YLH then use the government Asian Hornet watch app to your phone,
available in the Google play
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=uk.ac.ceh.hornets&hl=en_GB
or Apple App Store
https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/asian-hornet-watch/id1161238813
Best to download this in advance of the monitoring week or any potential sighting.
We would like to coordinate the monitoring, to try to cover a large an area as possible. The end of June timing is critical as the YLH’s should be shifting from the small primary nests to the larger secondary nests and will be foraging for sweet sugar sources.
Monitoring can range from just an open dish, however as the bait evaporates quickly many people use a simple wick station, as described in the NBU leaflet below.
Traps can be used, however be careful to avoid killing bycatch. Open monitoring is a better solution if possible as there are reports that traps aren’t terribly effective this early in the season, with less than 40% YLHs entering them.
The some branches are making commercially available bait which can be collected at the apiary sessions, but you can make your own bait, most recipes are a mix of blackcurrent juice and alcohol, wine and beer to discourage honeybees.
There have been 27 YLH sightings so far this year, mainly in the south, and whilst there have been no reports so far in Lancashire, we need to remain vigilant, as there were YLH nests found and destroyed in Yorkshire and Cheshire in 2025.
https://www.nationalbeeunit.com/about-us/beekeeping-news/yellow-legged-hornet-2025-rolling-update-2
Clearly, if you wish to continue to monitor for more than the last week in June please continue to record your monitoring results in the App.
Each Lancashire and NorthWest beekeepers Branch has a YLH coordinator. Contact your branch to find out who.
Asian Hornet Team Coordinators Map
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