The orb weavers are out in force

[Jophiel]

@ducati

She won’t listen to reason. Now, I have one right on a window on the deck, and she has laid eggs. I have forbidden her to damage the egg sac, but I’m thinking I may move it to the shed for safekeeping. They won’t hatch until spring, and I’m not sure I can keep her from spraying it until then!

If you touch the egg sac, the mother will reject them and you’ll have to hand raise a thousand spiderlings.

[ducati]

@Jophiel

If you touch the egg sac, the mother will reject them and you’ll have to hand raise a thousand spiderlings.

Good to know. I don’t have any eyedroppers that small.

[picunurse]

A couple days ago, I opened the kitchen door, it’s the one we use most. There was a giant orb weaver web at eye level covering most of the doorway. The sun was coming through it. It was so pretty, but, we had to get out, so spidy went away along with her home.

We’ve taken lots of them outside too. I thought it was just my bad housekeeping that was attracting them, but I guess it’s just this year.

The year we moved into this house was bad too. That first winter was horrid. Are we going to have snow all winter again?

[picunurse]

@Johnny_L.A

Earlier today, the SO wanted to go to the back yard. She thought she’d go out the back door and walk around, since the back screen door is a bit balky. She changed her mind, though.

The gnats are abundant this year. Actually, I don’t think I’ve seen so many gnats here. Also abundant are the orb weaver spiders. These guys, at rest, are between the size of a nickel and the size of a quarter. Their webs are between most of the bushes, and I can see them high in the trees. They’re all over the place. And they’re full of dead gnats. The insects seem too small for the arachnids to bother with, but many nibbles make a meal. (Is that a saying?)

The SO said the spiders are eating so many gnats, she doesn’t want to knock down their webs. She wants them to eat as many gnats as they can.

Do the webs look like this? Not spiders, not gnats.

[Johnny_L.A]

@picunurse

Do the webs look like this? Not spiders, not gnats.

No, the webs (and spiders) look like this. The gnats look like the ones caught here.

[YogSothoth]

@Terr

I am talking 3-4 feet size, not inches. Those would be some BIG butterflies.

If I were you, I’d rescue the children surely trapped inside first before worrying about what type of bugs they are

[ZipperJJ]

I have an apple tree in the front yard that has a branch about 5’ from the ground. A few weeks ago there was a spider web in about a 5’x4’ sheet between the branch and the ground. I left it alone and just mowed around it.

SOOOOO glad I saw it, and didn’t mow through it. Not because I respect the majestic creature and its work, but more like I would have probably died of fright right there on my John Deere. (And then spiders would have created a web from me to the tree and in my ears and my nose and all around my tractor’s engine.)

[blondebear]

@blondebear

The biggest concentration of orb weavers I’ve ever seen was at the Saltair marina on the south shore of Great Salt Lake. Hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands and thousands of them. Creepy and cool at the same time.

I found a local TV news story about the orb weavers at the Great Salt Lake: http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=21589706

[dracoi]

@wolfman

I like Orb-weavers. They will look at a tree branch, a chain-link fence and a gutter that form an 8 foot by 8 foot tunnel, and decide to build a web there. It’s cool to see a bug with that kind of ambition.

I guess your spiders are the under-achievers. I took one down yesterday that built from the gutter of my two-story house down to a chair at the end of my deck. Had to be 15 feet in height and 25 feet in length.

And I agree with the OP that this year has unusually large numbers of spiders. Perhaps two or three times what I’m used to.