Red light is typically used at night in order to avoid destroying the eye's rhodopsin, which helps with night vision and takes at least 30 minutes of non-exposure to blue light to fully replenish. You'll see pilots and astronomers using red flashlights for this reason.
I think hornets probably don't react to red light. I think bee researchers also use red lights in labs when extracting bees so they don't become active in the presence of light.