What the hell flew into my bedroom last night?

[1dayatatime]

So it was a hot night and I had the bedroom window open when I was woken around midnight by something big and buzzing bashing around.

I am guessing it's a hornet but the bloody thing is over 3cm long and it took half a can of fly spray and 20 minutes to die.

Below it is a wasp for comparison of size.

😂

Why do you have a wasp on hand to compare?! 😂

That's a European hornet They are lovely, we have them, fun fact: they aren't aggressive, but will dive bomb you and buzz if you get too close, only the female hornet stings, and they have kleptomaniac tendencies to steal prey off spiders!

@fallingthroughclouds I'm not into insta either, but in my naivety I thought there must be some reason you'd spend 20 minutes killing something, so figured maybe that? Perhaps I'm just fed up of seeing gloating posts about people killing spiders / wasps / hornets rather than being particularly shallow

This story has made me sad that you killed both of them :(

Simple guide

OP has repeatedly said she didn't kill the bee!

I have just firmly shut my bedroom window and switched on the fan instead.

OP this would have fully freaked me out.
I would definitely have either tried to kill it (apparently murder) or run screaming out of my bedroom and slammed the door shut then called in a professional in the morning.

I had no idea there were different types of hornet and even if I did I would not have been trying to identify it before acting.

Horrified.
Will probably have nightmares now featuring those giant wasps from an episode of Dr Who fifteen years ago. You have my total sympathy.

www.naturespot.org.uk/species/giant-woodwasp

I thinks it's this and harmless

Maybe not, but what about the wasp and hornet? 😉

There are some beautiful huge moths out at night at the moment, if they come in your home please let them go as they are quiet effective pollinators

Another mumsnet thread that makes me despair.

I have a hornets nest above the roof space in the bathroom. I had eight in the house last night because I left the door open 🤷‍♀️

But she still killed the hornet, when she could have spent that 20 mins killing it she could have got it back outside instead :(

That's it, I'm never sleeping again.

I think I'd have just burned my house down to be honest

Check the recent BBC news article on Asian hornets. We are being asked to check and report sightings. They are invasive and eat honey bees

Depends on the insect. I'm not so keen on headlice for example. Plus I'm not vegan so can't really carp on about the odd stinger.

@Mademetoxic

"But she still killed the hornet, when she could have spent that 20 mins killing it she could have got it back outside instead :("

+++

Yeah mea culpa I killed the hornet - quite honestly it was the middle of the night and I was shit scared that it would sting me and I had read some horror article about how deadly Asian Hornets were.

I didn't spend 20 minutes torturing it to death either. I simply sprayed with fly spray, it then got understandably pissed off, so I kept spraying it. As other posters correctly pointed out unloading that much fly spray in a confined space was not a smart move but I was scared.

I appreciate that others may have invited it in for tea and cake and maybe introduced it to your parents at the weekend. But I was freaking out and killed it.

Do I now feel guilty - no.

Leave the window open and swat it to the direction of the open window...That does work with time & patience :)

Yes but this is not an Asian hornet. It a native European one. They are a natural part of our ecosystem and in fact quite docile if left alone, unlike wasps.
Asian hornets are a worry, but they aren't actually common and if you see one you should report it and not kill it so that experts can track down the hive. Killing one does no good at all.

I was on a horse once that got bitten on the backside by one of those.
He was an Irish draught horse but I reckon with the speed he then flew (with me clinging on for dear life), we could have won the Grand National.
Terrifyingly big.

A bit late but the second insect is clearly a hoverfly, not a bee or a wasp.

Native European Hornet 100%, nothing like an Asian Hornet. The Asian Hornet hysteria is honestly getting ridiculous - multiple posts on this thread wrongly saying that's what it is and urging OP to report.

Possibly Dark Giant Horsefly Tabanus sudeticus, or a close relative. They are impressively large.

I think you could be right. It appeared more orange than black but photos show a bit of orange on these ones too. Whatever it was, it buzzed very loudly and no one could believe how fast my horse galloped through 2 fields (particularly me)!