Well, it appears that shooting the nest in the hope of destroying it and its colony did NOT work. But more on that later….

Our day yesterday started off beautifully with a low fog hanging over the hills behind the house we are sitting, and the colours were striking.

Mick and I had decided to catch the €1 bus to Thuir to go to the weekly markets – they are quite large and the trip on the bus(es) is not too long.

The day turned out to be beautiful and sunny and quite hot as we wandered through the stalls and the back streets, some of which had been decorated in preparation for Halloween.

Thuir boasts quite a few interesting sculptures that are displayed in different parts of the centre ville, some of which have appeared in previous posts of mine. But this next one in particular caught my attention as Mick and I have five children (although not the combination displayed here), and it would be nice to think they had marched along like that.

I’m sure they did!!

The stalls are packed into the central square surrounded by the well preserved buildings. It is a very neat town. I always love seeing the stall an old lady has where she sells buttons and zippers and needlework materials. I wonder how she makes any money at all by selling these items. But every time I have been to Thuir markets, she has too, even in the heart of winter.

Mick and I enjoyed some of the locally cooked finger food at the markets before getting the buses back home, we have to change at Perpignan, but the waiting times worked perfectly. All up €2 each for us to get 4 buses (2 to Thuir and 2 home). Amazing.

Once home, later that afternoon, I noticed some wasps swarming outside the bedroom window. Immediately I called Mick and we noticed that in fact there were two nests being commenced, one in each set of windows. And they clearly were the very dangerous Asian Hornets, called frelons in French.

Mick wanted to get some diesel and spray the nests but I showed him some research on the internet that showed exactly how dangerous they could be, particularly when provoked, and I did not want those things inside the house. I suggested instead that we go and see the Honey Man (as we call him) to let him know that the frelons had returned and to seek his advice about what to do. When we got to his house there was no one at home but we did spot one of the wasps carrying away one of his honey bees. He is going to have a big problem on his hands if these are not destroyed.

 

I sent the Honey Man a text and told him what was happening and he gave me the name of a specialist I had to contact to have the nests removed professionally and safely. The Honey Man also asked if I was sure they were frelons. As you can see from our vantage point inside our bedroom we got a pretty good view of the insects and they definitely are the dangerous Asian Hornet.

I called the number for SOS Guêpes and was able to convey my message, and understand what the man was saying back to me (all in French). He said he would come to our friend’s home on Monday or Tuesday, however this morning I received a text from him and he is coming this afternoon. Phew.

You can clearly see the swarming insects in the photo in the top corners of the window casings.

As we went to bed last night, I took this picture of them. Apparently they are inactive at night, and it took a lot of discussion with Mick to stop him from trying to destroy them then and there.

You can also clearly see how much progress they have made on their papery nest in a short time. While there doesn’t seem to be too many of them at the moment, we have seen how big their nests can grow.

This morning, Mick has done further checking around the house to see if there are any more nests, and we both can see large numbers of the wasps swarming around where their nest once was in the large tree in our friend’s garden.

We have of course kept our friend informed about what is going on and she is very unhappy about Monsieur Le Maire’s decision to have the hunters shoot the nest.

Clearly it has not worked.