'Tis the Season - Seeing Sawdust Below Your Roof or on It?

Every year during late April, we'll get a real warm day and all of a sudden you may some huge bumblebee like creatures flying around your house, especially the roof line. You may about to be infested by Carpenter bees (see picture on the right). These gentle creatures (the females can sting, but I challenge anyone to get one to do it) tunnel into wood. They emerge from winter dormancy in late April here in the Northeast. They proceed to go about their mating flights. They fly around, hover in one spot, and chase each other around, and finally mate. After mating, the males die. The females then go about drilling their holes.As you can see from the picture, one of their favorite spots to drill their holes is in back of the trim board that runs along the edge of the roof. Each bee is a solitary nester, meaning there is not a "nest" containing more than one (other than the young). They drill a half inch round hole about half way through the board and then turn at right angles and drill a tunnel 6-7 inches long, leaving a pile of sawdust on whatever is under their hole. Sometimes they will drill holes right into the face of log homes. They prefer unpainted wood. Most people with normal hearing can actually hear them chewing the wood. They lay eggs in the tunnel and provide those eggs with "bee bread", a mixture of pollen and nectar from flowers. Each egg is sealed in separately and after the female is done with her egg laying, she dies. This usually occurs by the end of the first week in June, so their "season", when active drilling is occurring is only about 6 weeks long. The young emerge as adults later in the summer and spend the rest of the summer foraging on flowers (they are great pollinators). The young may overwinter in the holes they were "born" in. As  you can see from the picture they leave a tell tale droppings stain right under the entrance to their tunnels. The holes on the outside of the board are made by woodpeckers looking for the nice juicy larva growing inside the tunnels in the wood. This damage is the most significant damage done. They do no structural damage. Their damage is purely cosmetic. They can be killed with pesticides, but the most permanent solution is to physically exclude them. Depending on the situation (and it is not always possible to do this), this can be done with paint, flashing, hardware cloth, or anything that will prevent them from accessing the area where they want to drill their holes.

It's Getting Close

     The days are getting longer, the sun is getting warmer, and pretty soon you are going to notice one of the creatures on the right flying against a window in your home, trying to get out. What are they? They are wasps. The bottom one is the ordinary paper wasp and the top one is the Mediterranean wasp, an introduced species which is slowly pushing our native wasp out. The Mediterranean wasp is very easily and often confused with a yellow jacket, but they are entirely different. They build unenclosed nests similar to the ones pictured below. They overwinter in attics and walls, and as the weather warms, they come out of their winter dormancy, and will sometimes find their way into the living area of your home. When this happens, they fly right to a window, because they want to get outside. Once the weather gets warm, and stays warm, they won't be problem inside anymore. They are not particularly aggressive, but can and will sting if provoked. They start building their nests, which are made out of paper, as soon as the weather starts getting warm. They normally start new nests each year, but may use old ones sometimes. They may build a new nest right next to an old one, giving the impression they are using the old one. Sometimes they can be found flying around untreated decks, old wooden fences, wood piles, etc. and no nest is found. What are they doing? They are getting wood fibers to use to make the paper for their nests.
     A unique trait of wasps is that any female can become the queen. This presents a problem when trying to get rid of an existing nest, because if every wasp is not "at home" when the treatment is done. Any returning female can "declare" herself the new queen and the nest will continue on in the same location.
     For nesting locations, they like areas behind shutters, enclosed light fixtures open at the bottom, the louvers at the peak of the house, under the rake board (the trim board that follows the edge of the roof at the ends of the house), and in the open ends of pipes on portable basketball backboards.
     We can do prevention treatments which will drastically cut down on or totally eliminate them from building nests on and around your home. The treatments are guaranteed for the season, and should be done every year. After 2-3 years the treatment will become close to 100% effective.

Omigod, It Must be Rabid

Spring is a few months away, and that will mean animal babies all over the neighborhood. Baby birds with their mouths wide open in nests, waiting to be fed. Pollywogs swimming in vernal ponds. Baby raccoons, skunks, foxes, possums, etc. living huddled together in hollow logs and trees, in old stone walls, under sheds, decks, and raccoons in chimneys. They could be at your house. You're sitting at your kitchen table late one morning in late May, drinking coffee, and watching the new leaves on the trees and the new green grass filling in after the winter. Suddenly you see it! An adult raccoon is walking across your back lawn, It's daylight, and they're nocturnal. They aren't supposed to be out in daylight. Something must be wrong. It must be sick. Could it be rabid? Relax. You're right, they shouldn't be out during daylight, and normally aren't, but out back is that old dead tree with the hollowed out area near the top. You've been planning on having it taken down, but haven't gotten around to it. Well, inside that tree are four baby raccoons about four weeks old and they are hungry and getting hungrier every day. The days are getting longer, the nights shorter, and the babies need to be fed, so the mother is forced to stay out during some daylight in order to get enough food for her kids. A normally nocturnal animal, seen outside in daylight during April, May, June, and into July is not a major cause for concern, as long as they appear to be acting normally. It's that kids will be kids and they need a constant supply of food. Always use caution around wild animals, but in this case, enjoy watching something you normally don't see.

Squirrel Flue

At this time of the year, gray squirrels are breeding. After they breed, the females start looking for a place to build their nest and have their young. They prefer hollow trees, but will get into attics, or build a nest (made out of twigs and leaves) in the crotch of a tree branch. One annoying habit they have, however, is that they will check out chimney tops as possible nesting sites (thinking they are hollow trees) and if they fall down the chimney, they are trapped. The flue liner inside the chimney is too smooth for their claws to hang on to, so they can't climb back out. If the damper on the fireplace is closed, they are trapped on the smoke shelf above the damper. If the damper is open, Oh, Oh, they are in your fireplace. Hope you have glass doors on the fireplace, if you don't, they could be in your house. They can also fall down chimneys into wood stoves, if they are connected to a chimney. They also sometimes fall down chimneys right into furnace pipes. They normally don't survive this. There are two basic ways of removing them. The first is dropping a very heavy (at least 1" in diameter) rope down the chimney from the top, thereby giving them something to climb out on. If you attempt to "do this at home", use extreme caution. Some newer houses are built with roofs that make this almost impossible without special equipment to get you up there. The second way is to go into the fireplace, grab the squirrel, and carry it outside and let it go. Not recommended for amateurs! This whole problem can be prevented by getting your chimney(s) capped. That will keep out raccoons, also.

They Look Like They Could Carry Off a Small Child

It's late July and you walk out into your backyard. Suddenly, you see what looks like a huge "bee" (pictured above) flying over the surface of your lawn. What is "that thing" you ask yourself? As you are asking yourself that question, it disappears down a hole in the ground that looks like the picture on the right. You have just become acquainted with a Cicada killer, a member of the wasp family. While they are huge and terrifying and capable of stinging, they are essentially harmless. You would have to really work at it to get one to sting you. They prowl the woods looking for cicadas, which are huge insects about 2" long (pictured on right). When they find one, they sting it. The sting does not kill it, but paralyzes it. The cicada killer then picks it up and carries it back to it's burrow. It drags it down into it's burrow, which can be 10-12" deep, and lays eggs on it. The eggs hatch into larva which begin to feed on the paralyzed cicada, literally eating it alive. Cicada killers prefer sandy soil with sparse grass which makes digging easy, and usually prefer to burrow into banks and not level areas. There may be more than one burrow in a given area, but there is no connection among the various burrows. They are solitary nesters, and multiple burrows only occur because the habitat is good for them. They can be treated, but are not harmful, and should just be left alone to go about their business.

The Squirrel from Hell

I promised in a recent post that I would tell this story, so here goes.

     About 10-12 years ago, around 1:00PM, I got called to a Law Office in Waterbury for a squirrel running around the office. When I arrived, the squirrel was missing in action. The office was divided by those fabric covered cubical walls most of us are familiar with. I found the squirrel hiding in a corner behind the cubical walls which had been set up against the wall, leaving about a 4" gap between the cubicle wall and the building wall. I set up a trap at the end of the wall, and put several cardboard boxes on top of it to prevent the squirrel from jumping over the trap. I took a pole I have and went to the corner and from over the top of the wall I started poking the squirrel along towards the trap. I got him about half way along the wall and all of a sudden he took off like a shot and ran right into the trap and set it off, but he turned in the trap and headed out so fast that when the trap door came down it caught him by the tail, but he was outside the trap. I had my heavy duty gloves on and managed to get a hold of him, so I could get him back into the trap. I held him with one hand, while I tried to open the trap with my other hand. It is very hard to open the trap with one hand and during my struggles the squirrel got away from me. Instantly, he vanished. I searched the office for another half hour and couldn't find him. I told the woman from the law office that I was working with that I would have to set and bait the trap, and leave it overnight. However, after his experience with the trap I had my doubts that he would go anywhere near it, but I set it, baited it, and headed home. About 5:00 PM, I got a call from the woman at the office - we had caught the squirrel in the trap! I was totally surprised! I went back to Waterbury, got paid for the job, and came home with the squirrel. When I got home I took him out in back of the house and let him go by my woodpile which is near the back door. By now my wife had gotten home from work and was inside preparing supper. I went in the house, washed up, and sat down to eat. Now, you need to know that we eat on TV trays in the living room while we watch the news. As I was eating, I suddenly heard a squirrel chattering right between my chair and the end table next to it. I slowly peeked over the edge of the chair and there was the squirrel sitting right next to my chair. Now the critter is inside my house. I motioned to my wife and slowly got out of my chair and went out to my truck to get my hoop net. This is a net on the end of a pole, which has a cable running through the handle, so the top of the net can be pulled closed. I set up the net next to the chair and asked my wife to take a broom and push the squirrel towards the net. Sure enough he ran right into the net. I quickly pulled the cable and closed the net. As I turned around to head out the door, I noticed the squirrel was hanging on the "outside" of the net. He dropped off and headed down the hall towards the bedrooms. I started looking for him again, and found him hiding behind the waste basket in the bathroom. I shut the bathroom door and told my wife we should finish dinner, clean up, and then deal with the squirrel. After this was done, I went back into the bathroom with the net, caught the squirrel, and this time I flipped the net over figuring the first time he may have squeezed out through the top which doesn't close totally tight. As I got out into the hallway, I noticed he was hanging off the outside of the net again. He dropped off, and ran back in the bathroom behind the waste basket again. It was now obvious that the net pole wasn't going to work, so I went out to the truck and got my grasper, a tool that allows me to grasp and pick up an animal from a distance. I grasped the squirrel and headed outside. I made sure the door was shut tight and went out to the woodpile. I let the squirrel go and he ran up a nearby tree trunk to a height of about my eye level. I turned around and headed back into the house. The next thing I know the squirrel is hanging on to my right leg between my ankle and knee. OK, this is enough!! I grabbed the squirrel with the grasper, went into the garage, and put him back in the trap. He spent the night in the trap in the garage and the next morning we took a ride to Litchfield (about 15 miles away) and I let him go at White Memorial Foundation, which is a 4000 acre wildlife sanctuary. I never saw him again, but that night I woke up in the middle of the night, and I just had to sit up and check the bottom of the bed to make sure he wasn't sitting at the foot of the bed looking at me.