On Fri, 27 Aug 2010, Phil Gurr wrote:

Over the last three days I've found three hornets, once in the bathroom,
then in the living room then one upstairs. Besides the mystery of how they
got into the house I'm puzzled by why all three hornet just walked very
slowly along the floor and seemed almost in a daze. I flattened each under
foot without them even attempting to fly away. Anyone else had any dozy
hornets? Why are they behaving like that? The ones I've encountered
occasionally outside seem anything but docile.

Well. bully for you, do you kill everything that you don't understand!

Sarcasm is not helpful when you feel you might be aggressed. I'm
certainly not going to hang around in the presence of a hornet to see if
your words are true!

Hornets are much more docile than wasps and will only become aggressive if
you get too close to the nests. Only the females have a sting and the ones
that you killed were probably evicted males at this time of year and were
quite harmless.

In France they are considered dangerous enough for the Fire Brigade to
come out free of charge in order to deal with a colony - which happened
to me a few years ago.

Hornets
are becoming rare in Western Europe and becoming endangered in the UK,
indeed, many in the UK have never seen a hornet.

That is certainly not my experience so I wonder if your observations
about their docility is as accurate!

Forgive me being rather more "waspish" than I usually am but I was stung
by a wasp just a few minutes ago - the first time for years - and I
don't react well to them! It was your sarcasm at the beginning that
irritated me. There was no call for it.

David

--
David Rance
writing from Le Mesnil Villement, Calvados, France