This is for Bob Scafe

By James Mulvey; posted September 14, 2014

View Original (1037 x 1479) 453KB

 


Decades before Frodo hit the big screen, I had my own creatures roaming the house. Here one of the goblins squeezes a light snack from a bees nest. At the moment I have no less than 5 of those nests in the house, either as decoration or as inventory for future projects. The largest nest I have came from the ceiling inside an old building. It has a prominent place on the ceiling above the dining table. We went after dark with a long kitchen knife, scrapped it off the ceiling and dropped it into a garbage bag, then sprayed it with raid. Tied the bag and left it for a few days. Simple, no fuss, no muss. [id=413383171; Bobs delema]

From what I remember the wasps use the nest for one summer, overwintering in the ground and building a new nest the following year. Had Bob waited a few weeks for the first frost, he could have joined other collectors such as Tommy Bolack and myself who have these unique pieces of natures artwork in their houses . There is a reason why the nests are not found more often. As the fall bird migration happens these nests get ripped to shreds as the birds search for protein rich larvae.

415290530