Yep, I know all about dirt-daubers. They live around my house and build
their hard mud nests all over the place. They are good in one way, because
they catch black widow spiders and put them inside their dirt tubes to
feed to the young wasps. Other than that, their nests are annoying. The
wasps don't seem to be agressive or sting.
Ashley
P.S. I'll quit since I'm veering off topic.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Joe R." <rigdonj(a)cfl.rr.com>
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk(a)classiccmp.org>
Sent: Wednesday, May 26, 2004 4:30 PM
Subject: Re: What's the weirdest thing that you've ever found inside a
computer?
At 12:45 PM 5/26/04 -0700, you wrote:
Howzbout:
the ivy growing up through the recent Castro Valley PDP-11/40 rescue?
Naw. That's common here in Florida. I looked at the pictures and it
didn't look like they'd been sitting out more than a couple of months by
Florida standards. I ROUTINELY find birds nest, wasp nests, plants, animal
dens and other forms of wildlife in anything that's left outside around
here.
BTW do any of you guys have "dirt-daubers"? They're a wasp and they
like to build nests out of mud. They LOVE to find hollow things like
tubing
(connectors, gun barrels, etc etc) and build a nest in
it. First they put
in a good solid plug of mud about 2" side the hollow then they lay an egg
in it and finally plug up the end of the opening. Their plugs are VERY
solid and they they can do the job from start to finish in less than a
day.
You really have to careful with stuff around here. If
you leave a tube
such
as a brake line open they'll build a plug in it
and when you put it back
together you'll wonder why the hell it doesn't work! Guns are a real
menace. If you shoot one with a nest in the barrel it WILL explode the
barrel. It's a fairly common occurance around here. If you have anything
with hollow electrical connectors that's been outside for any time you'll
often find the hollows filled with hard mud and wasp grubs!
Joe