Volunteers locate first officially recorded Asian hornet nest after painstaking search in Malaga province

After more than two months of searching the countryside day and night, the first (officially recorded) nest of Asian hornets has finally been located in Malaga province. A group of volunteers, comprising of residents and experts aware of this problem in the Guadalhorce valley, found it during one of their searches that took place on Friday, 3 October. The nest is in a private plot of land in the Pinos de Alhaurín residential area in Alhaurín de la Torre.

Local resident and biologist Eduardo Sáez first raised the alarm this summer, after identifying the first specimens of this invasive species in the province. He saw the Asian hornets drinking from his dogs' water troughs. Since then, residents, beekeepers and hikers, with the support of environmental experts from the regional government, have carried out numerous inspections to find the hornets' nest.

The next challenge now is to remove it, which will not be easy given that the nest is hidden among the branches of a pine tree, at a height of about ten metres. The spot is difficult to access. Moreover, hornets are very aggressive when it comes to defending their colony, which contains more than a thousand specimens. Each one of them can sting the attacker several times.

Experienced experts from Galicia have been asked to cooperate, as they have been fighting this pest for years. The removal will be carried out by a pest control company hired by the town hall. The authorities hope that the operation will be as successful as the one carried out in Los Barrios, where the first nest located in Andalucía was removed, without the subsequent return of specimens.

Mar, Mark and Manuel were the three volunteers that found the nest. Manuel told SUR that they would track hornets on their way back to the nest after visiting cattle feeders, note down when and triangulate the area. Added to this was the difficulty of entering private plots.

The nest was so well hidden that they ended up finding it in an area that had been searched before, without success. Manuel congratulated the numerous residents, beekeepers, pest control experts and environmental officials, including forest rangers from other provinces, for supporting the task.

According to Eduardo Sáez, the nest is located close to his street, about 250 metres from the control point. He believes that it was located in time to prevent the queens from leaving to form new nests.

"We imagine that they haven't started. Maybe it's still a bit early but we don't know how they will behave here either, where the temperature is milder than in the north. We would expect them to delay the dispersal of the queens," he said. Therefore, once this nest is removed, the problem will have been solved, "at least provisionally, until the next one arrives".

President of the Malaga beekeepers' association Juan Molina expressed his relief after two months of search. Asian hornets' main prey are bees and their activity generates an ecological imbalance.

"All the volunteers are very happy to have finally found it, especially the beekeepers. Now we can breathe a little. Even if only for a while, we have had a weight lifted off our shoulders," he said.