The hornets raid honeybee hives by sitting outside them and capturing workers as they go in and out,” says Natural History Museum expert Gavin Broad.
“They chop them up and feed the thorax to their young.”
Asian hornets were introduced to France by accident in 2004, probably in a shipment of goods from east Asia. It has consumed large numbers of bees in France, including the European honeybee and lesser-known solitary and colonial bee species, according to the RSPB.
https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/asian-hornet-uk-bees-insects-b2177217.html
I love honeybees and kept them for quite a few years, a sample of my and my beekeeping partner's honey won 1st prize in the Bristol Flower Show many years ago, we also won 1st prize for a capped frame of honey. But I was lucky and kept bees just before the Varroa Destructor mite became a major problem and it was mostly possible to avoid treating bees with some sort of medication. The AH threatens to become a huge problem for honeybees, beekeepers and also other bees, although not as far as I know Bumble Bees, which is just as well since the UK has lost quite a few species in the last few years.
RC