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Bugs and stuff.
Apr. 22nd, 2008 12:58 pmOwning a house sure is educational. You learn lots about all sorts of things--electricity and wiring, plumbing, structural stuff, building materials, gardening and landscaping, you name it. Yesterday's less on was of the entomological variety!
We stepped outside the garage, and heard this odd clicking coming from above our heads. So I took a closer look, and saw a series of holes in the piece of wood running across the top of the garage door opening. Perfectly round holes of about 1cm diameter--I'd have thought they were drilled, they were so neat. But a close inspection revealed that the holes were indeed where the noise was coming from, and a flashlight revealed something inside the holes and sawdust falling from the hole. Um, can that be good? I could see enough of the critter to recognize it as bee-like, so Heather did a quick Google and came up with our beastie--carpenter bees. Sure enough, I'd seen them buzzing around, and even buzzing around the garage door frame, but just assumed they were bumblebees looking for flowers to suck on. But nope, carpenter bees! Obviously, my first impulse was the American one--BEES eating my HOUSE, get the damn bug spray! But then we read a bit more about them and I felt a lot better. They don't eat the wood, they just drill the hole and excavate an area in there in which to lay their eggs and seal them up with spit and pollen. The young hatch, eat the pollen, and then leave the hole. The adults tend to re-use the same holes year after year. So the damage they do is minor (the real risk for damage is actually from woodpeckers looking for the larva), and the adult bees are very beneficial as pollinators, of course--in fact, their population has been on the decline, which is resulting in some concern for the citrus industry in particular. So you know what? If the bees are happy in there and all that we have is a few little holes over the garage door in a piece of easily-replaceable wood, we're okay with that. Now if only they were predators for other insects, like ants, I'd *really* roll out the damn welcome mat!
Otherwise life is fine. Hallie's become a bit of a pain at night--she just does not want to go to sleep when the lights go out, but we sure do! Hopefully she'll grow out of that at some point, sooner rather than later! Really, ever since she started crawling (which she's now very good at indeed), the world has been so interesting for her that she doesn't care much for sleep. Silly kid. Hermione's doing well--she had a gymnastics class yesterday, which apparently went pretty well. She said she liked it, but she also said she didn't want to go back. Tough, the next few sessions are already paid for. :) It's getting warm enough for the pool, too--we went in for a bit on Sunday, which was fun. Hallie loves it and doesn't seem to mind how wet she gets, but Hermione still refuses to get her face wet. She loves to float around hanging on to a tube, but she doesn't like splashes and doesn't want to learn to swim properly. I hope she does this year, though--since we have a pool, I want both of the girls to learn to swim as early as possible, partly because it will be a lot of fun once they can, but even more so for peace of mind. We have a pool fence, but to me that's just to prevent accidents--if they deliberately tried hard enough they could get over or around it. So yeah, I just want them to be able to swim at least well enough to go in at the deep end and get back out on their own. Obviously it will be a while before Hallie can do that, but Hermione's old enough now. She just needs to quit worrying about getting her face wet!
Okay, better get back to work. Sure does look nice outside, wish I was out there instead of in here!
We stepped outside the garage, and heard this odd clicking coming from above our heads. So I took a closer look, and saw a series of holes in the piece of wood running across the top of the garage door opening. Perfectly round holes of about 1cm diameter--I'd have thought they were drilled, they were so neat. But a close inspection revealed that the holes were indeed where the noise was coming from, and a flashlight revealed something inside the holes and sawdust falling from the hole. Um, can that be good? I could see enough of the critter to recognize it as bee-like, so Heather did a quick Google and came up with our beastie--carpenter bees. Sure enough, I'd seen them buzzing around, and even buzzing around the garage door frame, but just assumed they were bumblebees looking for flowers to suck on. But nope, carpenter bees! Obviously, my first impulse was the American one--BEES eating my HOUSE, get the damn bug spray! But then we read a bit more about them and I felt a lot better. They don't eat the wood, they just drill the hole and excavate an area in there in which to lay their eggs and seal them up with spit and pollen. The young hatch, eat the pollen, and then leave the hole. The adults tend to re-use the same holes year after year. So the damage they do is minor (the real risk for damage is actually from woodpeckers looking for the larva), and the adult bees are very beneficial as pollinators, of course--in fact, their population has been on the decline, which is resulting in some concern for the citrus industry in particular. So you know what? If the bees are happy in there and all that we have is a few little holes over the garage door in a piece of easily-replaceable wood, we're okay with that. Now if only they were predators for other insects, like ants, I'd *really* roll out the damn welcome mat!
Otherwise life is fine. Hallie's become a bit of a pain at night--she just does not want to go to sleep when the lights go out, but we sure do! Hopefully she'll grow out of that at some point, sooner rather than later! Really, ever since she started crawling (which she's now very good at indeed), the world has been so interesting for her that she doesn't care much for sleep. Silly kid. Hermione's doing well--she had a gymnastics class yesterday, which apparently went pretty well. She said she liked it, but she also said she didn't want to go back. Tough, the next few sessions are already paid for. :) It's getting warm enough for the pool, too--we went in for a bit on Sunday, which was fun. Hallie loves it and doesn't seem to mind how wet she gets, but Hermione still refuses to get her face wet. She loves to float around hanging on to a tube, but she doesn't like splashes and doesn't want to learn to swim properly. I hope she does this year, though--since we have a pool, I want both of the girls to learn to swim as early as possible, partly because it will be a lot of fun once they can, but even more so for peace of mind. We have a pool fence, but to me that's just to prevent accidents--if they deliberately tried hard enough they could get over or around it. So yeah, I just want them to be able to swim at least well enough to go in at the deep end and get back out on their own. Obviously it will be a while before Hallie can do that, but Hermione's old enough now. She just needs to quit worrying about getting her face wet!
Okay, better get back to work. Sure does look nice outside, wish I was out there instead of in here!
