![]() This mantis is praying that we’ll leave him alone.Įuropean hornets can wipe out a lot of your honeybees! They will catch them in midair and land somewhere to eat them and then back to the cycle again. Until then, we’ll be preparing marinated hornets for some unknown creature in the woods. With cold weather, the drones will die off leaving the queen to care for the brood over the winter. Most likely, they have a nest in the woods, a teeny tiny flight to our front door. But John says he used to see these way back when he was building the house…so they’ve been here since before the house. No saying what nooks and crannies they may have found though. I know they are not nesting in our solid log walls. The last thing anyone wants is a few hundred of these things inside the house. These hornets are tricky and will create new escapes if one tries to block their entrance or spray it. Homeowners with a nest in the house are urged to call a professional exterminator. At this time of year, late summer into fall, the colony could range in size from 300 to 1000 hornets. They nest in the woods at least six feet off the ground, but they have been known to nest in exterior house walls. The problem is–we don’t know where the nest is. Fortunately, they are rather shy and really not aggressive–unless they are defending their nest. ![]() Unlike honeybees, who give their lives with a single sting, hornets can sting repeatedly and the European Hornet has a nasty big stinger. In Germany, they are a protected species. They eat many insects that truly are considered pests. They’re just showing up where the action is. They are not attracted to the porch light per se they are attracted to the other things that are attracted to the porch light. They eat live insects like crickets and cicadas. They will not hide in your open soda can. I do not know if they were invited or if they crashed our garden party, but they are here now, and happily ensconced all over the East Coast.Īlthough they look like big yellow-jackets, they do not eat human food and are not a threat to barbecues. I love it–as long as I’m not the one in the circle.Ī bit of internet research identifies our flying monsters as European Hornets. The next morning, John tosses the marinated bugs into the woods and some critter comes along later to eat them. As it turns out, they die as soon as they come in contact with the oil. that we notice activity around the light…and a soda bottle filling up with the dead. (Well, we go watch tv and check from time to time.) Unlike moths, they don’t show up immediately. John fills the bottle with a couple of inches of vegetable oil, thinking that the bugs can drown in it. John’s original live bug trap added an aluminum light-reflecting shield (aka, a sliced open beer can). The insects are attracted to the light, bounce off the soda bottle and fall in. The contraption involves cutting an opening in the side of a two liter soda bottle and hanging the bottle from an outside light. He resurrects his bug-catching invention that he devised years ago to catch live insects for our frogs Frieda and Franny. Not knowing what they are or where they nest, the best John can do is kill the ones who show up at our door. John used an unobtrusive clear soda bottle…and he even took the label off! I refuse to live in a dark house because of a few insects. This is not a permanent solution, however. We turn off the interior hall light to stop attracting them. So now dozens of them are bouncing off the front door. Me, beekeeper wife, who takes a cocktail down to the bee-yard to relax while watching honeybees come and go who can calmly keep reading on the porch even though I am allergic to the black wasp on the screen who takes pictures of her hubby petting bumblebees and smiles at grandson who does the same. They are so big they make a wasp look like a mosquito. Unlike moths, which flit annoying around light, or June bugs, which bump clumsily against the glass, these look threatening, like mutant yellow-jackets. Enormous “bees” bounce off the glass of our front door.
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