Biggest? and Stangest?

              I've done many Bald Faced hornet nests this summer, but these two are really up there on the "WOW!" scale. The first is probably one of the biggest I have ever seen. I put my foot next to it and to the right of my foot is my ball point pen! This thing was huge and was about 8' up in a crab apple tree. I killed it with the spray can on the end of my bee pole (which can telescope out to about 25'), and managed to get it out of the tree in one piece. I use a pole trimmer to cut the branches it's attached to, but it usually falls and breaks apart when it hits the ground. I managed to guide this one through the branches and get my hand on it, so it came down in one piece. The woman decided to keep it for a souvenir. I told her to put it in a plastic garbage bag and put it in her garage until all the larvae and pupae, decomposed and dried up. I have one hanging in my Bay window that I killed years ago, and it's still in perfect shape, and almost as big.

Biggest?

 This next one is really strange. Apparently they didn't have much faith in their engineering department. They built this one inside a street light (privately owned), near a customers house, so they would have some extra protection from the weather. Normally these nests can hold up to anything up to and including a Category 2 hurricane. I didn't kill this one because I had been called to the house for a yellow jacket nest in the wall and one of the woman's kids showed me this one. It was so high up it wouldn't bother anyone. So I let it be, they have their place in the environment and are beneficial as long as they don't bother people. I told her kids not to throw rocks at it!

Strangest?

Can an ugly reptile be cute?

        I think they can, especially when you see this! I went to a mouse/carpenter ant job the other day, and after I finished, I was standing in the customer's driveway talking to him, when we saw this on his driveway.
        A little background here. He has a pond out in back of his house, and he tells me that every June, a big female snapping turtle comes up on his lawn and tears it all up digging a hole to lay her eggs.       
        Well, the summer is almost over, and I guess the eggs have hatched, because this is what was in his driveway. That's a quarter next to it for a size comparison. That's how big a newly hatched snapping turtle is, and I guess we have all seen what they grow up to be. Those 40 pound, 18" long monsters you never want to deal with! A few minutes later, the customer found another one a few feet away on his lawn. When I left he was headed for the pond to release the little guys!

Ever wondered what was inside...............................?

        Well, here is the answer! I went to do a bald faced hornet job in Roxbury yesterday. It was attached to the side of a window air conditioner and to the window itself. It was a pretty good sized  nest, that had been started in mid-May. It was good and healthy, and very busy. The woman decided to kill it because she was starting to get some in her bedroom even though she had taped the window up pretty good.  These are not pollinating "bees", they are carnivorous, feeding on caterpillars and other insects. They are not in any trouble like the pollinating bees are, and can be very dangerous. They have their place in the environment, but when they are just above a deck on someone's home they have to be removed. If they were 25' up on a tree branch, I would recommend just letting them be.

This is what the nest looked like from outside.

        Took the video from inside the bedroom window. I have only seen this once before in my entire life and that was when I was a kid! The woman called it her science project. Her daughter and grandchildren had come up from New York. Boy, did they have a good time taking pictures and videos. Talk about "Show and Tell" for school which is starting soon! 

Bald faced hornet nest from inside window.

The Interesting Jobs Just Keep Coming

        Yesterday I went to Seymour for a "fluttering and squeaking" mysterious noise in the chimney of a fireplace. That covers a lot of territory. Could be just about anything. Got to the house, opened the screen of the fireplace, opened the damper, and got into a position where I could look up the chimney. I saw the problem immediately. Only saw it once before in twenty years in the business. Nothing needs to be done, the problem will resolve itself shortly. The cause of the noise was "chimney swifts". These are small swallow like birds that build mud nests on the inside of chimneys. There they lay eggs, raise their young, and when the young fledge (leave the nest), they are done for that season. They will come back year after year unless the chimney is capped, but they do no harm, so why not provide them a happy home, and help out a species that is in decline, especially in CT.
          This is a photo I took, looking up the chimney. You can see three young, just fledged, swifts hanging on the side of the chimney. Just above and to the left of them is the edge of their nest, attached to the side of the chimney.

Here is link to more info on Swifts!
http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Chimney_Swift/id

Illegal Immigrants? (title - courtesy of my wife)

         I did a yellow jacket job this morning, and ran across something I've only encountered about 4-5 times in my 20 years of doing pest control. This is the nest I removed from a barn at a horse farm.

       Pretty routine, except it was in a difficult spot, and required some gymnastics to get at it! What came as a surprise was what was inside it.

        Yep, a black and white yellow jacket. The common yellow jacket is the upper one. My understanding is that these black and white ones are parasitic. Their queens, instead of starting their own nests in the spring, wait around until the common yellow jackets get their nests started and then they move in, kill the existing queen, and proceed to start laying eggs. Over the course of the summer, the workers gradually shift from yellow and black to white and black as the existing jackets die, and new black and white ones emerge from the eggs laid by the new queen.
        Nothing really different with this. They are still dangerous and should be removed, unless they are well away from humans. Just one of those curiosities that nature is always throwing at us!
      

Poor Little Guy

       Had an interesting job yesterday. A regular customer had a little shed outside that he kept his garbage pails in. Something was digging underneath to get inside. I looked at it the other day and couldn't tell right away whether something was digging in to get the garbage, or was living under the shed. Called the customer (who was in California on vacation) and told him we could put exclusion fencing around the shed, to prevent further problems, and leave one spot open, so we could put a trap there and catch the culprit. The hole appeared too small to be from a raccoon or woodchuck, but there was no skunk odor around either. This was really puzzling.
       Got there this morning and saw that the hole was still there, and was still about the same size. Opened the shed and began to look around. All the garbage had been picked up, and all the pails were empty. Looked in one, and then grabbed the side of the second one. Peeked inside. There in the bottom was an adult skunk, sitting in the bottom. Surprised me a little, but once I composed myself, I carried the pail to the edge of his lawn and released the skunk. Neither it nor I were any worse for the wear, but I have no idea how long it was in there, but it wasn't there the other day when I checked. Apparently, it fell in looking for food and couldn't get out.
        Finished up by putting in the fencing. No need to set a trap. The culprit got caught in the garbage pail. Another successful job completed.