Pest Report - 2011

You may or may not remember my 2010 year end tally. Basically, I decided a couple years back that I was going to fight off the pest insects at the Moanstead by hand. I have limited the battle to things that sting, chew on my house, or chew on my plants. And as I learned in 2010, North Carolina is always ready to have some wintertime days that are warm enough for the wasps to come back out, so I waited until 2011 was gone for good to post my report. Here goes...


So what does this all mean? Well, it shows that my prowess for wasp and carpenter bee dispatching has increased greatly since last year, which I'm sure has nothing to do with the fact that our freshly screened porch had no door for a good long while this spring. I nearly doubled the number of those bastard carpenter bees as last year!

The interesting thing though, is the ridiculous decrease in the number of the invasive Japanese beetles killed this year. Last year, I got 702 and this year only 130. Now granted, we spent a bit of time in Missouri during their prime emergence times, but 572 less beetles this year seems a bit extreme. The low beetle counts also lowered my moral...that is until I realized the probable reason. Clearly, I had won!

I wonder what 2012 will hold? Hopefully it's even less Japanese beetles!