GIANT hornets attacking Gloucestershire's honey bees could kill off its honey production industry.

The aggressive Asian insect, spotted in northern France, could be making a bee-line for this country.

The mini-beasts – four times the size of native honey bees – attack bees flying out of the hive until the colony is exhausted, then move inside to eat the larvae.

Fran Haidon, committee member of the Cheltenham and Gloucester branch of the Gloucestershire Beekeeping Association, said the hornets were invincible.

"We can't put contingency plans into place as there's no way to stop them," she said. "If you had enough of them, they could destroy your hives.

"With a weak colony, they could go in and take it over if there weren't enough bees to defend it."

Mrs Haidon, who keeps six hives at Badgeworth, said a winged invasion could be the final nail in the coffin for colonies already struggling to survive.

The floods of 2007, the mild summer of 2008, the harsh winter of 2009/10 and attacks by killer parasites have left keepers across Gloucestershire struggling to maintain their hives.

All these issues have seen the county's honey production plummet.

"Bee-keeping is getting very difficult as we have so many other problems," she said. "The varroa mite feeds on our bees and spread disease. We used to be able to use pesticides, but now they've developed immunity.

"There's also the small hive beetle, which is going to come in with imported goods from Europe.

"And this winter was so hard we lost an awful lot of our bees.

"Asian hornets are the last thing we need."

The Asian hornet's sting has been compared to a hot nail being hammered into the body.

Experts believe it could head here from France.

British Beekeepers' Association spokesman, Tim Lovett, said: "People are on the lookout for it. It's an unpleasant little critter."

The hornet is believed to have travelled on Chinese pot plants to France in 2004. It has colonised large parts of the country as a few hornets can destroy 30,000 bees in a couple of hours.