hives

Asian hornets display predatory behaviour, including hawking in which they hover near hives.

Mr Stringer said police had told him an accelerant had been used to burn the hives, which were sitting on pallets in a wooded part of the park.

Fortunately, his own 1,500 hives are intact, because the fire stopped just metres away from the fields where he keeps them.

Tillman: There was a point it would make me break out in hives because it felt like I had no control over it.

"Although the hives have all been full of food, the bees have just dwindled. Most of the bees survived through January, February, and then they just vanished," he says.