Our Banded Hornets' nest is gone.

My most recent post – Who Robbed the Coucals? – suggested that maybe it was Asian Giant Hornets or Banded Hornets that broke into the nest of our pair of coucals and ate the eggs.

But I thought I’d ask for an expert opinion. I contacted Associate Professor Paitoon Leksawasdi, an entomologist at Chiang Mai University.

His reply was swift and pretty conclusive: ” Looking at your picture of the egg , there  is a big hole. I think that it was more likely caused by a squirrel than by falling from the nest. The pin holes you mention in one of the eggs
would not have been caused by a hornet. Their biting mouth parts would have made a bigger hole.

“Usually hornets eat caterpillars and other other living things. I have never heard of one piercing and sucking  birds’ eggs.”

So it was most likely squirrels. Thanks, Professor.

The hornet that built the nest seems meanwhile to have given up and gone away. Probably found that the neighbours – us –  are too noisy.

And the big hornet nest I wrote about here is gone. Someone snuck into the garden one night and destroyed it. Somehow they got the whole thing down out of the tree without getting stung to death. All that’s left is some burned remains.

A bit sad, because it was a wonderful structure. But at least now I can cut the grass in that part of the garden.

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The culprit? Asian Giant Hornet queen.

We have a pair of Greater Coucals in the garden. They’ve tried many times to raise young, but without success.

For some reason they seem to favour a stand of Buddha bamboo right in front of the house. It should be ideal – the bamboo is very dense and although it won’t keep snakes out, it deters our cats.

But over the past few days Pen has come across three eggs on the ground below, breached and emptied.

One of the empty coucal eggs.

It’s a bit of a mystery. If a snake, say, or a rat had eaten the eggs, you’d expect to find nothing left. They’d be swallowed whole. But each of these eggs has a ragged hole that looks as though something might have nibbled it. One of them also has three pin-sized holes elsewhere in the shell.

The coucals seem to have given up on the nest.

We’re wondering whether the culprit may be our favourite insect – the Asian Giant Hornet. One of these has started on a nest in the same stand of bamboos. Do hornets eat birds’ eggs? I have no idea.

I have located an entomology professor at Chiang Mai University and sent off some pictures to him. If he responds I’ll repost.

Meanwhile, note to self: get rid of that hornet nest.

The hornet's next in the making. Very elegant, but far too close to the house. It has to go.

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Fields of sunn hemp, which is harvested to make organic fertiliser.

Continuing our wanderings in the Khao Yai area, we were taken by friends to the Jim Thompson Farm in Pak Tong Chai. The 600-rai farm was set up by the silk maker, initially to ensure a steady supply of mulberry plants and silkworm eggs. These days they grow a lot more there, including some of the largest pumpkins I’ve ever seen.

I Googled “World’s largest pumpkin” and found this site, and the pumpkins at the JT Farm are smaller. (For the record, let me state that I’m not a pumpkin expert, nor do I go round the world looking for giant pumpkins.) But they are still pretty darn big. 

The farm is entirely organic. They grow acres of fast-growing sunn hemp which is harvested for fertiliser. Each hemp plant produces dozens of bright yellow flowers – quite a sight. Reminded me of the fields of oilseed rape one sees in Europe. (For those who feel uncomfortable with a plant called rape, call it Brassica napobrassica instead – it’s what canola oil is made from.)

Unfortunately we were there on a weekday – there are organised tours of the farm, but only at the weekends – so we didn’t get to see all of its. But we did see enough to be impressed. The pix below give some idea of what it’s like.

The farm has a website here.

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Morning glory.

Geranium garden.

Gourds.

Some of the farm's bigger pumpkins.

One of Amnat's windmills in the making.

Watering the garden can be a pleasure some days, wandering slowly around enjoying what you’ve created. But on other days it can be a bit of a bore, a chore that must be done, and which can’t be hurried.

But now there’s another way to get the garden watered and give yourself a bit of fun and exercise at the same time. It’s all thanks to Amnat Garnchang, who runs a cluttered workshop on the outskirts of Korat.

The cheerful and endlessly inventive Amnat Garnchang

Amnat’s main line is building windmills, and very fine they are, too, with the vanes painted in the red , white and blue of the Thai flag. He can build just about any size you want, and install it for you.

But this cheerful and inventive fellow has also built a number of machines to pump water using muscle power. He’ll happily demonstrate for you his stepper machine, and show you progress on his exercise bicycle. He also has plans to make a glider, or langlaufer machine.

Simply drop one hose into your pond or klong, or next door’s swimming pool, and attach the other to a sprinkler, then climb aboard and pump iron and water at the same time.

Amnat's yard is full of arcane but no doubt very useful junk.

Of course, you may not like exercise machines any more than the boredom of watering. Once more, the Genius of Korat has the answer: Invite the neighbours’ kids around to do the work for you. He’s also built a seesaw and a small carousel. Perfect. The carousel can be turned by kids pushing it or, of to one side, there is a seat with a pair of handles on the back of it. The carousel can be powered by rocking the seat, or by lifting and lowering the handles.

Amnat has appointed Garden in Siam as his official distributor in Phuket. We’ll put your machine on a truck and deliver anywhere in Thailand. Take a look at the catalogue pix below. To enquire about prices, add a comment at the bottom of this column.

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Ride the stepper seated...

...or stand on the pedals for more water power and more exercise...

...or if the mood takes you, ride it back-to-front.

The children's carousel. Just needs a coat of bright paint and it's ready to go.

The seesaw will keep the neighbours' kids busy for hours - to your advantage.

Uncle Grai sings to his veggies.

On our recent travels around Khao Yai, we stopped at the market garden owned and run by a local character known as Uncle Grai.

He sits in a large open-sided shed, surrounded by a sophisticated sound system, and sings Thai songs and slightly mangled versions of Western songs. Around the shed his staff work on, weeding, digging, planting and watering. The farm is dedicatedly organic.

Uncle Grai says that dousing plants with water gets rid of caterpillars. Sprinklers don't.

Uncle Grai’s usually got a good audience of people. But it’s to the vegetables that he primarily addresses his songs, believing that his vibes make them grow stronger, greener and more delicious. The plants seem to be able to appreciate his singing at quite a distance – and they certainly look very healthy.

Inside the shed there are plenty of vegetables for sale, not just from his garden but also from neighbouring ones, along with hats, homemade jewellery, ice cream and cold drinks,

Gardening hint from Uncle Grai: Don’t use sprinklers. It’s better to use a hose with a rose on the end to give the plants a good shower. In addition, the water knocks caterpillars and other plant-eating grubs off the leaves onto the ground, where they drown.

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There were probably as many cameras as there were pot plants.

We just came back from a short break, staying on the edge of Khao Yai National Park and in Korat. While there, we went ot see the Wang Nam Khieo Flower Festival. Apparently the local authority, who organised it, got a B50 million grant from the government, presumably on teh basis that it would boost tourism to the area, so we were looking forward to something spectacular.

Wang Nam Khieo is a delightful area, with wineries and some very nice resorts. The one we stayed in, the Jungle View, has nicely appointed wood cabins looking across a klong to the mountains, and a good restaurant with both Thai and farang food, for B1,300 a night.

This area and the area to the north, next to the entrance to the park, have become a playground for weekenders from Bangkok, which is only three hours’ drive away, so there’s increasing sophistication – good coffee and restaurants, wine, shops.

But the WNK council don’t seem to have been infected with this sophistication.

To get to the flower festival you first have to run a very tacky gauntlet of sponsor booths, knock-down-the-cans-and-win-a-teddy-bear booths an cheap food outlets.

Beyond this is the main attraction: a maze made of walls of pot plants with, along one side, a rather sad tunnel of pumpkin and gourd plants.

That’s it. How they managed to spend B50m on this is beyond me. And then, how much money came in from the tacky sponsors? And people were pouring in, paying B100 a head + B20 per car. I’ll leave you to ponder the pix below – and the maths.

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The cute heart at the fetching stand for the zippily-named Bank of Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives attracted lots of happy snappers.

The stand for Thailand's state oil company, PTT. The strands of ivy hanging down are made of plastic. Quite apt, really, when so much oil is wasted on the manufacture of meretricious plastic tat.

Toyota's wind-driven stand. There was a picture of the "green" (hah!) Prius but they forgot to bring the car itself. Or maybe they're all sold out.

Fast food, of course.

Amazing maze. Not really. Note the hearts and smiley faces.

Why you butterfly?

The tunnel. Er, the half-tunnel.

Colourful leaf hopper - in this case graphocephala coccinea.

You’ll maybe recall the photo I posted recently of a tiny, very strange insect. Thanks to reader Wendy, it’s now identified, sort of.

Wendy has a good friend, Dave Rentz, who lives in the rainforests of Kuranda, Australia. He knows a great deal about insects. His fascinating blog, with great close-up shots of exotic insects, is here.

Wendy shot him the link and he promptly responded, “Your insect is a baby leaf-hopper. They usually occur in numbers on stems of plants where they suck juices. The adult will look quite different and be very colourful. The adults are often on tree trunks or branches.”

So we’re narrowing things down, but there’s still a way to go. Apart from anything else, the leaf hopper family, the Cicadellidae, encompasses at least 20,000 described species divided into 40 sub-families.

So unless we can imprison one of these little guys and feed it until it’s grown up, we won’t know which species it’s from. But many thanks to Dave and Wendy for the help.

A word about the pic at the top of this blog. I found it on Wiki Commons. It was taken by insect photographer Thomas Shahan of Oklahoma. His website has some absolutely stunning arthropod photography. Visit him. Now. Once you’ve got a taste, check out his flickr pages.

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No, my name's not Frank. In fact, I'm really not a bug at all. And you really do NOT want to eat me.

Anyone who’s studied nature for more than five minutes will know that camouflage is an important part of survival for millions of species. But carrying one’s excrement on one’s back is, some people might say, taking things a bit far.

Pen recently bought a makok tree, sometimes known as Thai olive. The fruit bears a passing resemblance to olives, but that’s as far as it goes. In fact this tree – Linnaean name Spondias dulcis (see here for Wiki entry) – is a relative of the cashew tree.

Frank's momma - or poppa.

The fruit, crunchy and a bit sour, is a favourite with Thais. According to some theories, Bangkok started off as “Baan makok”, or Makok Village.

This tree came complete with its own complement of leaf-eating bugs. The imago is pink and black and looks quite like a ladybird, but it isn’t because ladybirds are carnivorous and these bugs are leaf-eaters.

When you examine the underside of  leaves that have been nibbled, what you find is a small blob of shiny dung. Definitely unappetising if you’re a bird. Nope, I don’t think I want to eat that.

Imagine carrying this lot around for a large part of your life.

But scrape the dung off gently and underneath you find a fat grub, bright yellow with black feet and head.

Contemplate the Darwinian route whereby this grub ended up doing this. Momma lays a bunch of eggs that hatch into bright yellow grubs that birds can see easily and eat. Not exactly the fittest for survival. But one of the brood – let’s call him Frank – simply can’t get the hang of wiping his bottom. In fact, he gets crap all over himself.

Momma thinks this is disgusting, but as he grows, all his cleaner siblings get gobbled up, until there’s only Frank left to pass on the family genes. His girlfriend Thelma is none too happy with his grubby habits but since Frank’s the only kid on the block, she has no choice. Mate, mate, mate, lay eggs, lay eggs, lay eggs.

And half of the kids grow up with Frank’s horrible habit. But they survive. Those with Thelma’s ability to use toilet paper don’t. See how this goes?

Can anyone pin down the name of this bug ? If so, please comment below.

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Elegant paper pyramid, but don't get too close.

Over the past few months I’ve been cautiously watching the growth of a paper hornets’ nest on one of our pomelo trees. It’s now a good metre high. It’s really very elegantly made, and tough, too – it’s apparently unaffected by the heavy rain we’ve had in the past few weeks.

There are plenty of people who will take one look at the nest and tell you this is the home of the feared Asian Giant Hornet, the Dtor Seua in Thai, (Vespa mandarinia in Linnaean). This is the one, they’ll tell you, that will give you an amazingly painful sting – four or five stings, and you’re dead.

Greater Banded Hornet. Pic courtesy of the School of Ecology and Conservation, University of Agricultural Sciences, Bangalore.

But I believe this nest is actually that of the Greater Banded Hornet (Vespa tropica). Now, understand, I’ve not been getting too close. Hornets, I read, are generally not very aggressive, except around their nests. But the fuzzy photos I’ve managed to capture of the hornets themselves show a brown insect with what looks like a single band of yellow around the abdomen, very like the pic on the left.

A close relative, the Oriental Hornet, has two bands very close together, which perform a unique function: they allow this particular species of hornet to absorb sunlight and turn it into energy. This is a very recent discovery, as reported on December 6 by the BBC. One wonders whether the single band of yellow on the Greater Banded performs the same function.

They may not be Asian Giants, but they’re still pretty hefty. They are about an inch or more in length and sting-wise they pack quiet a wallop, especially when hundreds of them attack.

Any threat to the nest prompts a red alert transmitted by pheromone (basically, smell). “All units! Red alert! Intruder at 4 o’clock, 30 degrees down, approaching rapidly. Scramble now! Ready? Attaaaaack!”

When I was at school in England, more years ago than I care to count, a friend decided it might be fun to chuck some bricks at a wasp nest.

At first nothing much happened; the wasps, in increasing numbers, just circled the entrance of the nest. Then suddenly, like a blurred yellow and black flamethrower, they erupted from the nest and were all over him.

Close-up of the surface of our nest, with its beautiful paper whorls.

He ran screaming all the way back to the school building and had to be carted off to hospital for shots of epinephrine, just in case he was allergic and went into shock.

A few of the wasps, presumably those who weren’t too good at pheromone directions, stung me as well. So my friend wasn’t my friend after that.

And those were just little European wasps.

Hornet stings hurt massively because of the inclusion in the venom cocktail of acetylcholine, which is a neurotransmitter. In other words, it spreads and intensifies the pain. Not pleasant.

Some advice if you find a similar nest in your neighbourhood: Don’t kill a hornet near the nest. It’ll emit the red alert pheromone. And don’t wear perfume or take other volatile substances (gasoline, for example) close to the nest as the smell of these, wafted on the breeze, may be mistaken for a red alert.

All of which explains why the grass in a 50-metre radius around our nest is going to stay uncut for now. And I don’t think we’ll be harvesting the pomelos from the tree, either.

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Antennae? Or tail? No idea

This strange insect visited us during breakfast. Tiny, as you can see – that’s Pen’s index finger it’s perched on. It pottered around for a while and seemed just as happy walking backwards as forwards. Still not sure whether those are antennae or a fancy tail. Finally it got bored and with a powerful jump simply disappeared.

Anyone know what it is?

Pass it around please. Maybe someone else can identify it.