I think this is not going to be the Japanese hornet. Your partner managed to open a hive and 15 hornets flew out. If these had been Japanese hornets your partner would have got the hive opened but would then have been subject of a rather focussed attack which you do not mention. I wonder if these could have been vespa velutina. Why do I wonder this? Well the hornet is indigenous in China but has been found taking a ride with goods exported from China. There are problems in France at present due to the arrival of this hornet which apparently arrived in a consignment of pottery from China. Perhaps you have the same challenge. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_predatory_wasp What can be done? Well not a lot. Find the nest and burn it helps but there may be several nests. Reducing the entrance on the hive makes it easier to defend but it is necessary to make it a very small entrance (like one or two bees wide). Avoid bee landing boards since the hornets like to land first. Keeping strong colonies also is a major plus but there are no guarantees when the hornets are working together. At the start of the 'hornet' season they work alone and compete but that seems to change as more hornets appear and then they work together. I have a couple of traps being made in the workshop at present which will be used to test trapping. The traps will not be finished for another ten days or so and there are no guarantees at all that these will work. The attention of the hornets will change as other foods become available and so they will naturally move on until the nest dies off when the queen hibernates. *********************************************** The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html Guidelines for posting to BEE-L can be found at: http://honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm