Cicada Killers!

Scary Looking Bugs!

Cicada killers have infested the area along our stony driveway the past few years. These huge wasps look like scary hornets. Fortunately, they are not very aggressive. According to experts braver than I, they pack a relatively tolerable sting. A few days ago I found one apparently dead of old age.

Scary Bug! Check out the size!

Here's the side view:

Wouldn't you flinch with this buzzing around you?

During summer months air above the driveway on the side of my house is filled with these wasps as they dig burrow after burrow in dirt along the driveway. Numbers have been increasing each year. Here's one of several burrows dug into a drainage pipe in the stone wall along the driveway:

This drain pipe is now useless for drainage!

It's almost impossible to kill one of these monsters with wasp spray when they are outside the burrows. They fly too fast! Even when they temporarily land they seem unfazed by partial off-target spraying and simply fly off high into surrounding trees. My only hope is to spray into a burrow when one of them is inside. This did work once. The cicada killer got a good dose of spray. It crawled out and died soon after. Unfortunately, it's hard to know when the wasps are actually in the burrows. One evening I decided to watch one and wait holding my spray can. Back and forth it flew. Back and forth. Back and forth. It landed for 5 seconds near a burrow. My hopes rose. Then more back and forth. After about 25 minutes watching this mind-numbing behavior I gave up. Now I just spray all the burrows as they appear and hope it is doing some good. I have yet to actually observe a burrow in construction. Like a watched teapot that never boils these wasps never dig while I'm watching!

Normally, I'm happy to let bugs live outside, but these cicada killers are becoming too numerous to tolerate. The situation would soon be completely out of control without spraying. I can't mow grass without running over numerous burrows inviting attacks in response. This year they invaded every drainage pipe along my stone wall:

There are even more burrows along the other side of the driveway.

While I took these pictures Dude was puzzled as he watched from the back yard. He has a white spot on his snout from licking out a yogurt container.

Dude says: "Why is he taking pictures and not playing ball with me?"