European hornet attractant for videoing?

Did you try a chunk of meat?

I've been studying them since my initial post. Right now, they seem to be ignoring any bait I put out, whether it is sugar water, honey, or fermenting apple cider. The only "meat" I could try was a can of tuna fish in water, but they didn't come to that either.

I had better luck with catches when the visited the Rose of Sharon bush. I'm not sure if they're really eating anything or not with the bush. Seems more like they're landing perhaps to get sun and warmth. As the sun moves across the sky, they change areas to land but almost always picking a well lit section of the bush. If it clouds up, they don't come to the bush.

As I watched more closely, by afternoon there is no longer any sunlight reaching the bush, but they have found a new spot to land on being the neighbor's bamboo at the base of my yard. Again, they are just landing on the most sunlit sections and don't appear to be eating anything.

One thing I wonder about is if they leave some kind of markers. I notice that different ones will usually land on the same group of Rose of Sharon buds, and it was so predictable that I was able to snap some images. I knew it wasn't the same hornet because I had just netted the prior one a few minutes before.

Fascinating to watch for sure! For the ones brought into the observation container, I got rid of the honey and started using 2:1 water-sugar mix. It doesn't stick like the honey and a lot more manageable for them. Not all will nectar though, usually just one out of three. The others spend their time trying to find a way out.

Not a canned tuna fan?

Anyway- beef would be my choice of bait, a hamburger or hotdog. Hornets are the classic picnic pest, ants pale in comparison, except in cartoons.

I love tinpis, as it’s known in Pidjin. Particularly the PNG mackerel in tomato sauce. I’ve lived on tinpis and navy biscuits.

That said, I’ve tried tuna in traps, and even after days only got flies, and few at that. For hornets, I find they are most attracted to medium rare beef; as Adam noted, shrimp too- In my experience grilled is preferred over boiled. Hornets don’t seem to care much for
Fish. Hornets also like sugar soda, which is problematic in our area in August and September

Reflecting on another thread, nice salty oily tuna SHOULD be ideal for attracting Papilio; I’ll try it in spring, but based on experience I don’t think it will be successful

Since Covid, I've pretty much been a vegetarian, however I did have some hot dogs left over in the freezer. I brought out one of those today and microwaved it, then hung it outside. Now to wait and see what happens.

Also since Covid, I've pretty much stopped getting fruits including bananas and apples. It's a shame because the banana-sugar mash I used to make won out over everything else I've ever tried attracting leps, and the mixture did a good job attracting Euro and bald faced hornets- but only until early September. After that, the Euro's seem to ignore even this bait in my area.

I've still got cherry tomatoes in my greenhouse and a few "Oregon spring" which actually take all summer to ripen-
I didn't know durian was sold in the USA.