2023-12-11 06:00:00
Technicians advise clearing at the beginning of the year or with a tractor with a cabin
11 dic 2023 . Updated at 05:00 a.m.
A few days ago, a man died in Dumbría after receiving stings from a velutina wasp when he was clearing a farm. It is the last of the dozens of victims that this species has caused in Galicia since its arrival almost twelve years ago. Different ages, different professions and different locations, but if there is one common fact that links all these victims, it is that all of them were doing some work in the field. «It is not a particularly aggressive species, but the risk is that when you move the nest one can sting you, and if you are allergic you can have serious problems. We have to be aware of the risks. Velutina is not going to disappear and work must be adapted to this situation,” he says. Roberto Delgado, technical seathe public company to which the Xunta and Fegamp have entrusted the control plan for this invasive species.
Delgado continues his argument: «For example, we must do the clearing at the beginning of the year or in tractors with a cabin to avoid being attacked if we find a nest. Clearing, says the technician, is perhaps the highest risk activity, because if a hidden nest is touched with the manual brush cutter or tractor, the most likely reaction is that the wasps will come out and attack to try to defend their home. «Maybe there is not enough emphasis on the risks. Since June, clearing should not be done with a manual brushcutter and, if it is done with a tractor, it should be done in a tractor with a cabin,” he insists.
60% more notices
This year has been especially intense for the Seaga teams that are in charge of removing the velutina nests. «There was not a very severe winter, the viability of the queens was greater and there were many nests, that’s why activity increased a lot,” explains Roberto Delgado. The species is expanding throughout Galicia, but its greater or lesser presence in each annual cycle depends on meteorological conditions. At this point in the year, and although “at the moment it has not been very cold”, the queens should already be hibernating “and if there is any activity it is residual.” «July and August are usually the busiest months. Now there are still calls, because when people see a nest they call, but the normal thing is that there is no activity,” says Delgado.
A few frenetic months are behind us, especially in the summer, when the nest removal teams could not cope with all the warnings that arrived. Official data confirms this. «This year the incidence of this species exceeded all expectations and forecasts, so successfully that a average increase of 60% in the number of notices, up to over 48,100» from the beginning of the year until November 30, explain from the First Vice Presidency of the Xunta.
Seaga’s workers, Delgado recalls, removed nests in the most unexpected places—”in shoe boxes, in corks of hives, in fly traps, concrete mixers,…”, although the usual thing is that they are “in trees, but also on the ground, in eaves, abandoned houses. “It has a wide nesting range,” he says. Those that represent the greatest risk to the population, she argues, are those that are on the ground or on walls. Once the hibernation period arrives and the wasps leave the nest, it becomes inactive and, even if it survives for the next season, it is not used again. However, where there is a nest from previous years you can expect to find a new colony in the vicinity: “They usually make the nest in places close or similar to where they were, but They do not use the nest from the previous year again», points out the technician. This year, he adds, “perhaps they are not seen as much in the trees and more on the ground.”
In these twelve years, the velutina has proven to adapt very easily to the territory. Besides, “it has no natural enemies or they are very residual”, and “there is no natural control or effective methods” to deal with it – “the results of trapping are not desirable” – so every year it colonizes new spaces. When it arrived in Galicia it was believed that it would only affect the coast, and instead, “it is increasingly affecting more inland areas”, to the point that not only in Lugo and Ourense, but “even in Burgos or Palencia they are already seeing nests. It was also said that he did not tolerate altitude well, and that the thousand meters would be a barrier, but it is appearing in high areas, even above that reference. “Where there are bees there will be velutina,” Delgado advances.
29,299 nests until November
The Seaga technician said, confirming the impressions of beekeepers and the sectors most affected by the activity of the velutina wasp, that this year there were many nests. The balance of the centralized nest removal plan also corroborates this. From January 1 to the end of November, therefore one month before the end of the year, they had been eliminated 29,229 nidas: 12,131 in the province of A Coruña, 4,547 in Lugo, 3,706 in Ourense, and 8,845 in Pontevedra. The figures for those eleven months exceed those of the entire year 2022. Then 22,223 colonies had been neutralized, 10,352 in A Coruña, 6,899 in the province of Pontevedra, 2,918 in Lugo and 2,054 in Ourense. In fact, it is the highest figure since the velutina arrived in Galiciaabove the 26,006 nests in 2018, the record until 2023.
Archived in: Xunta de Galicia Fegamp velutina Sostenibilidad
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