Walter Finch
RESIDENTS of Malaga are being overrun with an invasion of deadly hornets that buzz around their properties and endanger pets and children.
One malagueño has even claimed he is killing 20 to 30 hornets a day since the plague arrived around three weeks ago.
Yet despite reporting the issue to the City Council, the council has not taken action to resolve the problem, according to residents.
Rafael Rodríguez, who lives in the Bailén-Miraflores neighbourhood, said that massive insects are constantly hovering around his terrace in an ‘invasion’.
And the threat is not just to humans – each colony of the Asian Hornet devours approximately eleven kilograms of insect biomass per year.
Their incremental invasion threatens local fauna and insect life, including the region’s native Iberian bees.
The aggressive predator, classified as invasive since 2007, is being monitored by the Ministry of Ecological Transition.
The Asian Hornet is a formidable hunter, almost unstoppable to its usual prey.
It can hover in the air, accelerate rapidly, and even fly backward. When it identifies a victim, it strikes and drags the prey back to feed its hungry nest.
They have evolved to defend against potential attackers, flying unpredictably in zigzags, making it challenging for potential predators to determine their direction.
When they attack, they do so with extreme prejudice, often swarming their target.
This aggressive behaviour leads to the prey overheating and dying. From the outside, all that’s visible is a cluster of Eastern Hornets.
The solution to eradicate a plague like the one afflicting Bailén-Miraflores is to search out and destroy the nests – a responsibility which falls to the City Council.
However, it is necessary for residents to alert the council when they find a nest.
Then, municipal workers or specially trained firefighters – who were trained specifically to fight hornets one year ago – go at night when the killer wasps return to the nest.
They use a special pesticide liquid that seeps into the nest and instantly kills the hornets.
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