A huge Asian Hornet nest was found above the urinals in a leisure park's toilet. The nest was discovered by a volunteer hornet hunter when she entered the toilet at the former Tamba Park activity centre in Jersey.
The hornets were hanging overhead unsuspecting members of the public using the urinals below. It is understood they facility has been "shut" to the public for several months but is still accessible.
Experts, who cleared the site the following day, said it was just about to emit queens, which could have gone on to form new colonies next year. More than 150 nests have already been discovered in Jersey during what has been a record-breaking season for the volunteers.
Describing the latest discovery, fellow hunter John de Carteret said: "A super tracker was out playing in the woods, when she felt the "need" so she quietly ducked into these gents toilets at a leisure park, in St Lawrence, and immediately she didn't want to go anymore.
"So this morning I went along with Pat, and the vacuum, and we cleaned things up so that she can go back and use the facilities. When we arrived this was a very busy nest with a constant stream of Asian Hornets arriving back with "prey parcels" to feed the larvae inside. It was about to emit large numbers of new season Queens, ready to mate, hibernate and emerge in spring 2023 to populate this area and beyond.
"Unfortunately for this nest, but fortunately for us, they didn't allow for the hunter's skill and tenacity in tracking this nest down, nor of others in the small group of volunteers doing the same right across the island right now, in a last ditch attempt to find all their nests before the hundreds of Queens that we know they will produce disperse into our beautiful Jersey countryside."
The battle in both Jersey and Guernsey is seen as vital to stop the spread of the insects that could decimate the UK's native bee population. Record numbers of Asian-hornet nests have already been found in Jersey this year with the number currently at 158.
The previous record was 83 nests located by the Jersey Asian Hornet Group in 2019, followed by 38 and 63 in the two subsequent years. Locals said they were shocked at how the nest was able to form in the public toilets.
One said: "I'm actually shocked that the public toilets are not monitored or even worse "cleaned" because if they were this would have been reported ages ago. Well done. Imagine this was disturbed by some tourists or even worse children."
The species began to spread through Europe in 2004 after arriving in the south of France inside a freight ship. They were was spotted in the British Isles on the Channel Island of Jersey in late 2016.
But after years of establishing themselves on Jersey and Guernsey, the battleground shifted last year to Southern England. This led to calls for a "people's army" to help fight off an impending invasion of killer hornets onto mainland Britain.
The hornets are able to kill with one sting among people who have an allergy, while they also pose a threat to the environment and native species. One hornet can also eat 50 bees in a day.
