Their season is over, but here's some info for next year

         Carpenter bees resemble huge bumble bees, and are excellent pollinators. They are active mostly during the month of May in this part of the country. Unlike most bees, they can hover in one spot like a helicopter. They emerge from winter dormancy in late April. The males and females fly around doing their mating flights. If there are a lot of them present, it can be a terrifying sight to the uninformed.  However, the males do not possess a stinger and while the females do, they almost never sting. They are about as harmless as a bee with a stinger can be. Once they mate the males die and the females go about drilling their holes. The holes are typically 1/2” in diameter. They prefer to tunnel into unpainted wood, but will tunnel into painted or stained wood. They will drill into fence posts, any untreated beams in houses, decks, etc.. They also get behind the trim boards along the roof line of a house and drill holes from the back side of these boards.  They drill into the wood about half way and then turn at right angles and drill a tunnel 6-8” long.  Their activity is usually first noticed by piles of sawdust on a roof under the drilling activity or on the ground or by their fan shaped droppings stains beneath the drilled holes. Once the female lays an egg, she provides it with “bee bread” (a mixture of pollen and nectar). She then seals the egg in a chamber with wood pulp and proceeds to do the same with the next egg, until she has deposited about 6-8 eggs in the tunnel. This can cause quite a problem at times, because woodpeckers can start pecking holes from the outside, looking for the larvae in the tunnels to feed on. After she finishes her egg laying, usually in very early June she dies. This is why the activity is seen mostly in May. The young emerge later in the summer and spend the rest of the season feeding on nectar in flowers. There is only one reproductive cycle per year. The young sometimes return to the tunnels they were born in to spend the winter. Unless there is a serious infestation over several years, the damage is usually just cosmetic. They never tunnel all the way through and get into the house or attic.
       The best way to solve the problem, is to replace the boards they are drilling into with a composite decking material. One Brand name is "Azek". They will not drill into that. Another method is to physically exclude them from the areas they drill in by stuffing fencing, steel wool, or some similar material up behind the trim board thereby limiting their ability to get behind the boards.
         In the photo, the dropping stains can be seen on the clapboard siding. The holes in the trim board are those made by woodpeckers, looking for the nice juicy larva in the tunnels in the trim board.

Typical Carpenter bee damage

Been gone too long!

      Well, it's been awhile since I posted anything ! Life just seems to get in the way. It was always, "Oh, I'll do that tomorrow", but as the old saying goes, "Tomorrow never comes". So here I am again, and I hope to be more diligent in posting tips, and stories, both instructive and funny.
       Big doings at North Forty Pest Control. We have now set up a sort of branch office in Bantam, CT, where my stepson, Matt, lives. We work together, and he is now fully licensed, so if you live in the Northwest CT area, and have any pest problems, feel free to give him a call at 860-387-1314, and if you're from the Waterbury area give me a call at 203-263-4551.
       So, anyway, it's been a busy season so far, and Yellow jackets and Bald faced hornets are getting started. They seem to be about 2-3 weeks early this year, and with the cold spring we had it is even more confusing. I saw a lot of queens flying around looking for places to start nests back in May. Looks like it's going to be another bad (great for us) season, just like last year! So keep your eyes peeled and watch out with those lawn mowers and weed whackers. That is usually people's favorite way of finding yellow jacket nests in the ground, and usually with some pain involved.
      

What a summer it was!

      Yellow jackets and white faced hornets. We all know about them. Nests in the ground, big gray nests hanging from tree branches, in shrubbery, on the roof line of the house, or yellow jackets getting into the house from nests that are in the structure of your home. Matt (my stepson) and I ran ourselves ragged dealing with these things this summer. It started about mid-July, which is typical. Then it cranked up, and never stopped until about 2 weeks ago. They were everywhere!
       One example, we went to check out a BAT job in a neighboring town, and before we left we killed four yellow jacket nests in the guy's house and stonewall that he didn't even know he had. That's how the season went!
       I went to one job where a family had a nest on the bottom of their deck, right where they stepped out the kitchen door. Obviously, they couldn't use their deck. The deck was about 3 1/2 feet off the ground, so since I was going to have to go in on hands and knees, I figured I better put on my bee suit (only goes to my waist) and gloves. All dressed, and in I go. Have to crawl about 20 feet, and as get about halfway in, I kneel on an old piece of rotten cardboard. Anyone want to guess what was under the cardboard. Yep, another nest. Panic time!!!. I start getting stung, and I start scrambling out from under the deck, laying down a fog of spray as cover, and finally make it out. Got stung six times, including once on each of my butt cheeks. I let them calm down for a few minutes, and I head back in. Got both nests this time! Ah, revenge is sweet. As I said before it was a record year. I more than doubled my all time record for one season. It was unbelievable!

Yellow Jacket or Hornet nest

     (They both build nests like this)

 

 

 

 

Yellow Jacket

 

White Faced Hornet

Check for Potential Hitchhikers

       The end of the college year is near and students will be coming home with all their "stuff". Are you prepared to deal with any potential hitchhikers in that stuff? I'm referring to bed bugs and cockroaches! College dorms and off campus apartments are sometimes notorious for having infestations of those two nasty insects.
       When your student arrives home, go through ALL of the stuff they brought home. Go through it with a "fine tooth comb", BEFORE you bring anything into the house. Check all clothing , drawers of any furniture, books (especially inside book jackets), etc. These insects are masters at hiding and you don't want to bring any into the house, or in a few weeks you will calling someone like me to get rid of them. Stop them before they get in your home. I have posted pictures of both so you know what you are looking for.

German cockroaches ( top row, l to r - adult roach, female carrying egg sac, and final stage nymph,  bottom row, l to r - egg sac, various nymph stages)

                                         

                    

Adult bed bug (they are about the size of an apple seed). Young bed bugs are the same shape, but smaller than adults.  

 

                               

New College Graduate?

Yellow jackets and White faced Hornets are usually amazing engineers. Those large gray paper nests they build will stand up to just about anything. They start the nests in mid-May and they just get larger and more populous as the summer goes along. You would think that being made of paper, a good heavy thunderstorm would wipe them out, but the rain just runs right off them. Occasionally, you'll see one built in a location that makes you wonder if they have lost faith in their Engineering Dept. Maybe it's a new college graduate in charge, and they figure they need some extra protection, just in case, so they built their home here!

Bat Exclusion Season

        Soon (3 or 4 weeks from now), bats will be leaving their summer roosts (your attics, louvers, shutters, or soffits) for their winter hibernation. Relax, not everyone has bats! Bat exclusion can then be done without worrying about having to get the bats out first (98% of the time that is true). On a rare occasion, you may get one macho male bat who thinks he can overwinter in his summer roost. Those that attempt that normally die over the winter. Once bats leave, we can go over the house and close up any possible entry points, so when the bats return in the spring, they can't get back in. It is much less expensive doing it this way, than having to gets the bats out first.
         Yesterday, we did a job in Roxbury, where the customer had bat droppings accumulating on the patio under the louvers (the slatted vents for the attic) of his house. We put up the ladder, climbed up, and checked. Didn't know if the bats were living in the louvers, or the louver screening had failed and they were in the attic. No bats in that one, screening was intact, so we sprayed the live wasp nest we found, removed all the old wasp nests, and covered the louver with hardware cloth. Now to the other end of the house, put up the ladder, and along with the wasp nests, were two Big Brown bats hanging on the screen under the louver slats. Screening on that one was intact, too. It was a little chilly, so the bats were a little lethargic. When I shooed them out, they didn't fly, they just opened their wings, and kind of parachuted to the ground. We picked them up with gloved hands, put them on a stone wall in the sun, and a few minutes later they had warmed up to the point where they flew off, but in the meantime, I got these photos.
           Went back up the ladder, cleaned out the wasp nests, and installed hardware cloth.  Another successful job!