At last

At last.  This is what we have been waiting for for the past couple of weeks -  a male hornet.  This one turned up to the maple syrup feeder - the first male I have ever seen.

He has very long dark antennae.  Males have 13 segments in their antennae whereas females have 12 but these look more than a twelfth longer.  You can also see he has seven abdominal segments (females have six).

I first saw him crawling around under the dish below the feeder and it seemed take him a long time to work out where the food was - the females take about five seconds!

This male was wary of approaching the maple syrup when workers were present.  Several times they drove him off, perhaps a normal reaction to encourage males to disperse to other colonies.