Vespa Catch: Asian Hornet Trap

Vespa Catch removes invasive Asian hornets (Vespa velutina) around your hives without harming honey bees. Two entrance wells and a light-blocking, odor-concentrating tunnel lid pull hornets in and keep them there — you don't need to check it constantly, and it doesn't need power or chemicals to work. In 15-day field testing in Portugal, it caught 2.3 times more hornets than a Tap-Trap and 5.7 times more than a DIY bottle trap.

Heads up before you buy: this trap ships empty. It does not come with lure. Véto-pharma's official VespaCatch attractant concentrate isn't sold or imported into the US, so we don't carry it — not as an add-on, not in a kit. Use the free DIY lure recipe below instead. It's what we use ourselves, and it works.

Key Features

• Species-selective capture — the entrance design targets hornets specifically, so you're not needlessly killing off other pollinators and beneficial insects.
• Field-tested results — caught 2.3x more hornets than a Tap-Trap and 5.7x more than a DIY bottle trap in independent 15-day field trials.
• Set it and leave it — the tunnel lid concentrates odor and blocks light, so the trap keeps working without you checking it every day.
• Reusable season after season — empty it, refill the lure, and put it back out. No disposable cartridges.
• Flexible placement — sits on a flat surface or hangs from the built-in hook, so you can put it wherever hornets are actually passing through.
• Easy to maintain — wide entrance wells make it simple to fill, refresh, and empty out between rounds.

Making Your Own Lure (Required — Not Included)

Since the manufacturer's attractant isn't available here, mix your own: equal parts beer (nothing fancy), white wine, and a natural fruit syrup. The alcohol repels honey bees while still drawing in hornets. Stir together and fill the trap no more than halfway. There are variations on this recipe, but this combination works well and costs next to nothing.

Tips for Using the Trap

• It takes a few hours after setup to start catching hornets.
• Reposition the trap if it isn't catching anything after a day or two.
• Trapping works best when the daily high exceeds 60°F.
• Place traps along known hornet flight paths for best results.
• Don't clean the trap when you refresh the lure — leftover residue actually improves efficiency.
• Leave a dead hornet in the trap when renewing the solution; it helps attract more.

Seasonal Use

Trapping matters most in spring, when you're catching founding queens before they can start a new nest, and again in fall, when nests are producing next year's queens. Summer trapping still helps reduce foraging pressure on your hives, but it has less impact on next year's hornet population than spring and fall trapping does.

Product Details

Related Reading

• Asian Hornets: Effective Control and Tips for Beekeepers

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