Vespa crabro

Vespa crabro, the European hornet, and V. orientalis are the most important species of the genus Vespa in Europe, Asia and Africa, and V. crabro has also been imported in the USA. These species are much larger than other vespids (fig. 2e). They build their nest mostly above ground, in hollow tree trimks or in birds nest boxes. Stings occur almost exclusively near the nests. 

Figure 7 Venomous hymenoptera insects, (a) Common honeybee (Apis me/Z/fera) (b), eastern yellowjacket Vespula maculifrons)-, (c) European hornet (Vespa crabro), (d) bull ant (Myrmecia esuriens)-, (e) Asian giant hornet (Vespa mandarinia japonica,)] (f) wasp stinger. Photos from (a) to (f) by Autan (Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike License), E. Begin (Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike License), N. Jones (Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike License), Nuytsia (Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike License), Netman (Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike License), and M. Halldin (GNU free documentation license), respectively.

Butts, D. R, Espelie, K.E. and Hermann, H.R. (1991). Cuticular hydrocarbons of four species of social wasps in the subfamily vespinae Vespa crabro (L.), Dolichovespula maculata (L.), Vespula squamosa (Drury), and Vespula maculifrons (Buysson). Comp. Biochem. Physiol. B, 99, 87-91. 

European hornet Vespa crabro L. have colony-specific cuticular hydrocarbon profiles (Hymenoptera Vespidae). Insect. Soc., 42,45-55. 

T1 bark beetles,489 Vespa crabro, European hornet 490... 

Pheromone of female housefly Fannia canicularis. Chemical trigger released by Vespa crabro (hornet) pupae for brood warming. 

Citronellyl citronellate and another minor component, citronellyl geranate, have been identified in the Dufour s gland secretion of Panurginuspotentillae but P. atramontensis has only the latter compound (Duffield et al., 1983). These two compounds have been found previously in the seventh sternal glands of the European hornet, Vespa crabro (Wheeler et al., 1982). 

Wheeler, J. W., Ayorinde, F. O., Greene, A. and Duffield, R. M. (1982) Citronellyl citronellate and citronellyl geranate in the European hornet Vespa crabro) (Hymen-optera Vespidae). Tetrahedron Letters, 23, 2071-2. 

Social thermogenesis is common for many wasps and often studied by thermometry. But no information about the nest metabolism - obtained by direct or mdirect calorimetry - is presented in the literature. Nevertheless, such data would be interesting for energy balances of a complete nest during the season and the contributions from the different castes of the wasps, the environmental temperature, the size of the nest and the insulating properties of the envelope. To find an answer to such questions, experiments similar to those with bumblebee nests were performed on the hornet Vespa crabro. 

Recently experiments were performed on nests of the hornet Vespa crabro and of several wasps by means of combustion calorimetry and DSC, TG/DTG and MS. The ash content of most nests is small (about 3 %) comparable to that of wood (see above) with the exception of nests of the wasp Dolichovespula (7 4 %). In contrast to wood with more than 50 % (fresh) and about 20 % (dry) the water content of wasp nests is extremely low with only 3.6 %. This is of special importance for the insulating properties of the envelope. The combustion energy with values between -16 and -18 MJ/kg corresponds to that of wood [120]. 

The sequences of two proteins from Vespa orientalis venom claimed to be lysophos-pholipase and phospholipase A2 have been reported (77). Comparison of the sequence reported for the 152 amino acid lysophospholipase with that of Vespa crabro phospholipase AiB indicates that it is the N-terminal 73 residues, residues 119-133, some of the C-terminal section fragments and the rest is not clearly related. Similar analysis of the reported structure of the 139 amino acid phospholipase A2 shows that it consists of the N-terminal 49 residues, residues 119-133, and some fragments of the C-terminus of phospholipase A B the rest is unrelated. It is probable that these reported sequences are fragments of the intact venom phospholipase, and not different proteins. The sequence data reported for these enzymes is not consistent with that found for other vespid venom phospholipases. 

Figure 4. Comparison of the sequences of antigen 5 from Vespula flavopilosa (85), Dolichovespula arenaria (88), Vespa crabro (85) dindSolenopsis richteri (97). The asterisks indicate residues identical to those in Vespula flavopilosa antigen 5. Dashes indicate positions inserted to maximize alignment.

Hoffman, D.R., Jacobson, R.S., and Zerboni, R., 1987, Allergens in Hymenoptera venom XIX. Allergy to Vespa crabro, the European hornet. Int. Archs. Allergy Appl. Immunol. 84 25-31. 

Argiolas, A., and Pisano, J.J., 1984, Isolation and characterization of two new peptides mastoparan C and crabrolin from the venom of the European hornet, Vespa crabro. J. Biol. Chem. 259 10106-10111. 

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