Silence

I must get more scientific about these pesky beetles.

At the end of May 2012 I noticed the tapping stopped however beetles are still emerging.  In fact I would say the number of beetles emerging has increased despite the tapping stopping. Over the long Jubilee weekend, I found about 20 beetles per day.  Given the tapping is supposed to be how they find their mates it is interesting that so many death watch beetles are emerging (and still drilling their little holes) without tapping.

If they are still around next year (I'm always hopeful the colony is dying off), I think it would be useful to measure beetles collected per week as well as logging outside temperature and rainfall. Given the weather the week before was really hot and then cooled down and started raining, maybe these pets like to emerge when it is wet and cool rather than hot.  It would kind of make sense if that is the case since the eggs/lavae rely on moisture in the wood. If it has been raining then wet wood would help them survive early on.

I was also thinking about alternative non chemical methods of treating death watch beetles. Given spiders are a native pest, injecting spider eggs into the holes would be a good way  to control them.  It wouldn't work for me though - my wife hates spiders.....