What's bugging you, Mid Atlantic? summer 2014

hanging on the walls or over your head. NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yeah and most times she goes in there in the morning when it's dark....super creepy.

egads!
I'd go in there and knock them down so the chickens can feast.

Found a katydid on the ground so I put it in a jar and took it to the library Tuesday. I will be getting a reputation. One girl was very interested. After I showed her and talked about it, she found a book on insects, brought it to the counter, and showed me the katydid in the book. So HA, lookee that, I inspired her to research, AND she shared it with me, so we are building a relationship with our child patrons. That's why I do it.

Sally--
I have picked up a couple dead bumble bees off my patio floor.
At least I think they are BB's....pretty big.--but not tas big as the borer bees.

Seems they are dying and then just fall down. maybe their life cycle is over?

Wish the Hornets were dropping off....I understand they will all die with frost.
Except the Queen--who will reside in the Hornet's nest to lay eggs and start
a new flock next year.
i HAVE TO find the nest! have NO idea where it is--but the worker-hornets are
still busy chewing off the bark from my Lilac branches to build the 'tubes" that
make up the nest...Learned all this from some links that were posted.

Maybe when all the leaves fall off the trees i will be able to search for the Queen's nest.
Have NO idea where it may be. my tree? My neighbor's tree? It could be anywhere...

Then--it will need to be destroyed. That will take care of NO MORE Hornets next year.
This HAS TO happen!!! Gita

Good for you, Sally! Too many kids grow up afraid of all bugs.

We used to get wolf spiders in our house now and then, but I haven't seen any recently.

While looking up the size of wolf spiders, I found this link. There's a video with incredible close-up shots of a wolf spider, including one of him catching a grasshopper. They are scary-looking things!

http://www.wikihow.com/Identify-a-Wolf-Spider

sounds like the video is from Australia Everything in Australia is bigger and creepier! Have you ever seen a weta? cricket from Hell I swear.

you can't tell me they didn't stage that attack, down to ripping off one of the jumping legs and shoving the hopper onto the spider burrow.
I just think it's funny, how I used to watch a nature video like that and think some one sat by a spider burrow for days until a grasshopper wandered by.

cat VS weta
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2N5Ukns_bs

Bummer....I was rooting for the cat to eat it. That's a pretty nasty 'cricket' though.

Just googled "katydid". Cute little bugs. I have seen them in the garden, but never knew what they were. I named them "grasshoppers after too much pizza" :o).

That cat vs weta video is amazing! The bug definitely put up a good fight. He must have looked very scary to another bug :o). The kitty was cute. Some cats eat bugs, but I never saw my cat do it. I once found a cluster of cricket legs on the floor. The cat probably ate the cricket and decided it wasn't tasty enough for him to eat again :o)

Wolf spiders, hmmmm... hope I will never meet one.

Geez, check out this katydid! I wouldn't want that thing crawling around anywhere near me.

OMG! What did it eat? Birds?

I guess, small mammals...LOL The article says it eats palm fronds.

I think that is photoshopped
http://bunyipco.blogspot.com/2007/07/queensland-palm-katydid-queensland-palm.html

I checked out some of the side links in Sally's "Wetw" link...

You could spend hours looking at these kind of things--as they
keep multiplying as you go...
Some fascinating--many not real. Long live photo-shopping.
Gita

Oh well, I'm pretty gullible when it comes to photo-shopped things.

My least favorite thing about camping and using those old outhouses is the large number of extremely large wolf spiders living in them!

We found this cicada recently... Joyanna said it looks like a winged treefrog.

Oh my! Why ever would someone let that thing on their finger!!! Those things are super creepy and if one was touching me, I'd freak out!

They sure are bizarro!. I found an empty pupal case on a tree the other day. I guess thats the term. Little tan clearish prehistoric looking thing clinging to the tree trunk.

Ok OK Jeff, its OK to be scared of cicadas, so was my eleven year old daughter back when they came in 2004.
;^D

LOL....Whatever! I don't even like touching the empty cases. I'm not a huge fan of bugs ok. The bigger they are, the grosser they are and the less I'd like to be near them. I especially don't like bugs that have no idea where the heck they are flying, i.e. cicadas, and those large june beetles. These things fly all about and run into things, not very predicable. And moths, forget about it! They are creepy too.

edited to add: I do have a soft spot for praying mantis and assassin bugs though and they are on the larger side of things.

This message was edited oct 3, 2014 3:15

Aww, how can you be creeped out by a "winged treefrog?" That cicada did have a pretty good grip, though... It first landed on my shoulder, and I had a hard time convincing him (her?) to let go of my shirt.

Joyanna thought the cicada was very cool, decided not to hold it but did put her nose about an inch from it to get a really good look. I never can tell which way she'll go, though... today, she refused to put her hand into a container of "spiders" made from pipe cleaners (each spider was numbered for a prize drawing).

When I was 10 or 11, I entertained myself by catching tarantulas, putting them in jars for awhile then letting them go. I was living in Texas at the time and there were only a few things to do when I went outside....the others being biking, picking wildflowers, playing in wheat fields and gardening.

About the cricket legs: We have 3 cats. One catches crickets and eats them. One catches them, rips off one leg at a time, spits out the legs and then leaves them to die. The 3rd one only watches them and pats at them once in awhile. So, Donner, your cat might be one of the leg-rippers!

Jill, that's too funny about Joyanna refusing to touch fake spiders!

Muddy, I don't mind crickets in the house (and they somehow find a way to come in the house *every September*), but I do mind... um, partially digested crickets that I sometimes find, thanks to my cat.

Jeff, this would creep you out
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1377520/

I used to spend hours poring over Golden Nature Guides, but some of the really creepy insects and spiders, I couldn't bear to touch the pictures, had to check the next page before turning to be sure I didn't touch one.

Ewww....that thing is disgusting!

Muddy, were there really no better things to do than play with tarantulas??? Geez I would have walked the other way from those things.

OK--Jeff--I am going to presume that the following would also creep you out.

--Picking steamed crabs
--Eating Mussels on the shell
--Sucking up a raw Oyster
--Changing a baby's diaper after #2 (when you have a baby).
--Letting a dead mouse drop off from the mouse trap
--Fixing a stopped up toilet
--Watching (any animal) have babies
--Watching your wife (someday) give birth
--Having ladybugs swarm inside your house
--Stink bugs.....etc...etc....
--Someone bleeding----would you help him/her?

OK! Enough! We love you just the way you are. A cute, sensitive gardener-hunk.

Sequoia, if you don't want to kill mice then order a "Mice Cube" Humane Mouse Trap. They work pretty well, although mice have escaped by flipping it over. Now I tape them to the floor. We get mice in our basement, unfortunately.

Sally, that cat vs. weta video is funny!

This message was edited Oct 3, 2014 10:39 PM

jeff--

Thanks for not being offended by my little "game'....and by answering it.

Not much grosses me out--maybe at first, but then the curiosity
kicks in and I need to take a closer look. Stuff just fascinates me.

My 1st job was at a Pharmaceutical Research Lab--from 1957-1964.
All I did was run tests with a product they produced. This required the use of
injecting animals with the drug and then observing the results.
This also required that said animals were used for the tests and then disposed of.

This required cutting up Guinea pigs, put to sleep, of course (one way trip)
--injecting mice (they have FOUR veins in their tails!) do operations on rabbits,
implant things, etc. Very interesting--love that kind of stuff..

I did not like working with the rats--when I opened the cage-they all backed up
and stared at me. That was very threatening...
SO--I just found the nearest tail--and yanked one out.

And once I begged the Dr. I worked with to take me with him to the Morgue
to see an autopsy as well as to the place where future Dr.'s train by cutting up
cadavers. Smelled very weird in there...

The Guinea Pigs were adorable...I went through about 25 a day though...
I still LOVE all kinds of medical stuff. If they let me--i would want to watch my own
surgeries...Well--hmmmm....at least i think i would--Definitely--someone else's.....

Gita

Our grandydaughter in Texas age 3 discovered cicada casings and collected about 40 on their walkabout. They had a pic on Facebook showing that she put them in her sister's stroller to save them. For some reason I had a thought that someone could put them in a glass container and turn it into a lamp. I would buy it. Hehehe.

I don't care for spiders, but LOVE looking at their webs and putting smaller insects in to watch the spider come and spin it up to save for later.

The scenes in The Lord of theRings with the spider though creeped me out.

Wow G, I don't think I could have done that kind of work. I would have felt terrible every day. There are tons of other things I'd rather do. It seems so cruel. And I would DEFINITELY not ever like to watch my own surgury! Some day I'll have to get the boys snipped and I hear you're awake for that and you can smell burning flesh. Not cool.

Muddy, I didn't know they had such mouse traps or I would have used one. I tried the smallest have a heart trap but the poor little guy was too small to trip it. Darcy was getting inpatient after a few weeks and I had to cave and get a kill trap.

I haven't had any luck with any size have a heart trap I've ever used.

My daughter drilled tiny holes in the Mice Cubes because she didn't think the mice would have enough air. I started using Mice Cubes because she would have been really mad if she found out that I used kill traps. Also, I had a few distressing experiences using the kill traps.

DO NOT waste your money buying this trap or any similar style. They don't work. The doors are either too sensitive and close with no mouse inside, or not sensitive enough so the mice can get the food and escape.
http://www.victorpest.com/store/mouse-control/bm007-12

This message was edited Oct 4, 2014 2:21 PM

Jeff--

Not cool to get your "boys" snipped??? NOT true!

You will be sitting on an ice pack for a couple of days. That's VERY cool!

:o)

I have one of the larger have a heart traps and have had great success with capturing rabbits in it. It's somewhat tough to capture them though but I've caught about 7 so far over the last couple years.

G: you're too funny :)

This thing was about an inch and a half long.

dooner--

I saw a couple of those guys on the ground when I moved something.

I have seen them before-and they have been ID'd before...just don't remember.
NOT dangerous...as far as I remember.

http://insects.about.com/od/beetles/p/Bess-Beetles-Family-Passalidae.htm

We find them around, and grubs of them in, rotten wood

That was the first time I ever saw one. Well, wouldn't mind having them around as long as they don't eat my plants :o). Thanks for the ID, Sally.

Sometimes those get in our garage. They make a gross cracking sound when you step on them so I try not to squish them.