Dataset for Identification of giant hornet, Vespa mandarinia, queen sex pheromone components

<p>The Vespidae are a diverse family of wasps and hornets that contain invasive species and are formidable predators of insects, including social bees. Recently, the world&rsquo;s largest hornet,&nbsp;<em>Vespa mandarinia</em>&nbsp;Smith(Hymenoptera: Vespidae), which occurs naturally in the Indomalayan region, has been found in Canada and United States. Some simulations indicate it could rapidly spread throughout Washington, Oregon, and parts of the eastern USA, threaten native bees and honey bees, and harm bee-pollinated crop production worth nearly $12 million annually. There is consequently an urgent need to learn more about&nbsp;<em>V. mandarinia</em>&rsquo;s reproductive biology and to develop trapping methods to locate its nests and control its reproduction. We identified&nbsp;<em>V. mandarinia</em>&nbsp;queen-produced sex pheromone from the 5^th&nbsp;and 6^th&nbsp;intersegmental sternal glands of virgin queens. The major active compounds were hexanoic acid (HA), octanoic acid (OA) and decanoic acid (DA). When placed in field traps, the synthetic compounds and a queen-equivalent mixture rapidly attracted hundreds of males. This dataset provides the data used in this paper.</p>