{"id":171719,"date":"2025-12-07T08:00:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-07T08:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/171719\/"},"modified":"2025-12-07T08:00:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-07T08:00:10","slug":"biosecurity-puts-aucklanders-on-alert-for-yellow-legged-hornets-as-more-are-found","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/171719\/","title":{"rendered":"Biosecurity puts Aucklanders on alert for yellow-legged hornets, as more are found"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Yellow-legged<\/p>\n

\nMore yellow-legged hornets are being found in Auckland.
\nPhoto: Biosecurity NZ\n<\/p>\n

Biosecurity New Zealand urges Aucklanders to be on the lookout for yellow-legged hornets or nests, as numbers of the pest keep climbing.<\/p>\n

Thirty-three Queen Hornets have so far been found in the Glenfield and Birkdale areas of the North Shore – two more since Friday – 21 with developed nests or signs of nests.<\/p>\n

Biosecurity NZ north commissioner Mike Inglis said the hornets had not spread yet from Glenfield and Birkdale.<\/p>\n

Officials have put up signs within one kilometre of where the hornets were initially found, including in the suburb of Milford, alerting people to the invasive insect.<\/p>\n

\"Hornet<\/p>\n

\nBiosecurity NZ north commissioner Mike Inglis.
\nPhoto: RNZ\/Marika Khabazi\n<\/p>\n

Inglis said that was just to raise awareness of the issue, rather than to signal the hornets had spread.<\/p>\n

“All we are doing is continuing to engage the public, get some signage up.<\/p>\n

“If you spot one, take a picture of it – if it’s a nest, take a picture of it. Don’t disturb it, contact our hotline and our expert staff will be out to deal with it.”<\/p>\n

Inglis said teams had set more than 617 traps<\/a> to eradicate the invasive insects, which were nearly twice the size of the common wasp and could wipe out bee colonies.<\/p>\n

Trapping has already been extended out to 5km from the hornet detections, with a combination of carbohydrate and protein traps.<\/p>\n

Inglis said staff would consult the technical advisory group overseeing the issue over extending further.<\/p>\n

\"Yellow-legged<\/p>\n

\nThe insect traps hanging from trees around some locations in Auckland.
\nPhoto: RNZ\/Marika Khabazi\n<\/p>\n

He said tracking technology from the Netherlands had arrived, which focused on worker hornets and tracked those hornets back to the nest.<\/p>\n

There were signs of worker hornets operating and more were likely to appear over the next 4-6 weeks, he said.<\/p>\n

“We’ll start to find some worker hornets as well, in terms of they’re going out and building a secondary nest, they go foraging generally within the same area.”<\/p>\n

He said Biosecurity NZ had received more than 4860 messages from the public so far about the hornets.<\/p>\n

Sign up for Ng\u0101 Pitopito K\u014drero<\/a>, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"More yellow-legged hornets are being found in Auckland. Photo: Biosecurity NZ Biosecurity New Zealand urges Aucklanders to be…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":107460,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[48,47,42,43,49,46,44,45,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-171719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-audio","tag-current-affairs","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-podcasts","tag-public-radio","tag-radio-new-zealand","tag-rnz","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=171719"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171719\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=171719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=171719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=171719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}