Yeah, was going to say... bumblebees are huge around here, easily twice the size of honey or carpenter bees.
My wife waits until they land on flowers we have on the deck, then pets them. They’re soft and fuzzy, and just fly off when they get tired of her.
You can pet honeybees too. It blew our kids’ minds when I did it to show them bees weren’t anything to be afraid of.
Carpenters and Bumble bees have similar looks. They are both large, but bumblebees are fuzzy and are social who nest together, carpenters are independent like mud dauber wasps.
Nett, if you have any hardwood trees on your property you better check them for gypsy moth nests. Those bastards have infested the west end of the city.
Yeah, we have many maples and check them frequently. I was in public school back in the day when they were doing the helicopter spraying (early 80's?) to try and contain them initially. It was surreal walking to school and seeing the crazy nests everywhere... like something out of a bad horror flick.
Grand Bend area is being sprayed by airplane throughout May. There’s a big waiting list for it. Everything about gypsy moth larvae suck. They’re so ravenous you can hear them outside at night eating, and if you touch one you can end up in the hospital. Picnic Paramilitary of Satan.
Not to mention the caterpillar droppings falling like rain. When I was a kid they would cropdust whole areas without warning, I lived in the sticks and remember riding my bike through the mist because no one knew they were coming through.
My name has been popping up ( not in a bad way) on a Facebook page dedicated to the town I grew up in. I’ve been tempted to reply to folks I used to know- and then I remind myself why they’re people I used to know, and not friends. Some doors are better left closed.
That's how I feel. I wanted to delete it all together but rely on it for the marketplace and buy/sell groups. I cleaned up my list to include family, friends, and work associates I wanted to stay in touch with and just let it sit that way. I used to treat it like a collection of people I knew but that is too much. I feel like social media has become a zoo for people and I do not want to be viewed casually with no interaction by people I barely know.
Regarding the Gypsy moths, I recall back in the late 80’s they were really bad here. But since then they haven’t seemed to be an issue for some reason. We see the larvae now and then, but nothing like back then. I recall in the late 80’s noticing that the starlings living near our house were bringing those little fuckers to the nest for the chicks to eat as fast as they could fly. And then at my grandparents, where the trees were eaten bare, I noticed no starlings. Now I’m not saying there’s any scientific correlation to my observations, but I’ve believed that those pesky little birds do, in fact, serve a purpose.
I love the Oneida natives here. While the rest of Ontario tells us that fireworks are not a principle necessity during a lockdown..... they digress. They are the bird version of Ralph from The Sopranos. So easy to hate, and with so many reasons to hate them.
Are gypsy moth nests the same as web worms? There may or may not be a video floating around of my dad destroying webworms with a propane torch on a stick...
You would have to look at the caterpillars to know for sure. https://haltonmastergardeners.com/2020/06/05/whats_that_caterpillar/
I tend to leave starlings alone. However, those house sparrows like the ones you had in an earlier picture I kill all I can. I put houses up for the native blue birds which those little bastards will kill in the nest.