The purpose of the Cumbria Asin Hornet Team (CAHT) is to monitor, inform and reduce the impacts of the invasive species Vespa velutina, commonly know as the Asian or Yellow Legged Hornet. CAHT will operate in accordance with instruction and guidance from the British Beekeepers Association, the DEFRA AHPA National Bee Unit and the Non Native Species Secretariat.  

All volunteers are to operate under the conditions of the BBKA coordinators and verifiers codes of conduct and to keep themselves abreast of changes and updates to the roles via the BBKA website link here. The CAHT members will always act in coordination with the Cumbria volunteer coordinators and make sure their actions are recorded with them.

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Volunteers will always seek a landowner or manager's permission to operate on their land and respect their and other volunteer's privacy and use of personal information, in accordance with the law. Volunteers will assess all actions and conduct in respect of their and others safety and consider the appropriate risk assessment actions.

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​Roles of Volunteers (as of June 2025) Download BBKA Document Here

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BBKA Reference : Click Here - Need to have registered and be logged in with the BBKA Learning Website

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A county coordinator An Asian hornet team county coordinator for the British Beekeepers Association (BBKA) is a designated leader within their local area responsible for coordinating the Asian hornet team's activities, liaising with regional authorities like the National Bee Unit (NBU), and facilitating public awareness and monitoring efforts to detect and report the invasive yellow-legged hornet in their county.  
 

Key Responsibilities:
- Liaison and Coordination: Acts as a central point of contact for their local BBKA association and the Regional Bee - Inspector, helping to coordinate the team's response and disseminate information. 
- Public Awareness: Organizes and leads efforts to educate the public, businesses, and other stakeholders about the yellow-legged hornet and how to identify and report it. 
- Monitoring and Surveillance: Supports the monitoring and trapping of hornets in their area and helps to follow up on potential sightings by the public. 
- Information Dissemination: Ensures that local team members and relevant authorities are kept informed and can effectively communicate information about hornet activity. 
- Team Leadership: Identifies and organizes team members who are confident in identifying the yellow-legged hornet. 
 

In essence, a county coordinator is the leader who organizes and directs the local team's efforts, ensuring that the county is well-prepared to detect and report any incursions of the invasive Asian hornet to the authorities. 

A verifier would be a volunteer that would go to a potential sighting with a trap, coordinate with the contact, that initially reported it, and maintain a watch for a reasonable period to see if there is a genuine threat in that area. If a confirmed sighting is made then they will refer to the coordinator and the NBU will act from there. (Until further notice there will be no requirement for volunteers to track the YLH).

A monitor would be a volunteer that would, when requested, keep a regular watch in a given area that is assigned to them (usually very locally) for YLH with traps, possibly open traps with camera or in person, to monitor an area of concern for a specific period of time.

Apart from these roles, the coordinators have been working on trap-making, educational roles and interaction with other useful organisations, such as rural communities, local government and services, that would benefit from knowing the threat and understanding the process that’s in place. There are also efforts being made to assist in financing this process. If you are a volunteer within Cumbria then, if you are not already, please contact me to be included on our very useful WhatsApp group that will keep you updated with meetings, actions and national updates. Send your name, your BKA organisation and mobile number to me at cumbriaaht@gmail.com and I will pop you on it. If you want to be a volunteer then contact you BKA YLH coordinator or secretary. Currently, our Cumbrian county coordinators are Clare Woowat, covering all the BKAs under the umbrella of the Cumbria BKA (Carlisle, Penrith, Keswick, Cockermouth and Whitehaven) with Andrew Brown working alongside Claire with the rest of the county’s BKAs (Kendal & South Westmorland, Sedbergh and Furness)