Golden Weavers

That's the fancy name for 'banana spiders' -- golden weavers. Whatever you choose to call them, this particular black and yellow spider is larger than any other I've seen around here, except for the tarantula.

The banana spiders, as with all other crawling things, seem to like this house. At the moment, we have three webs built by the golden weavers.... one by the back steps, one by the front porch, and one that's suspended between a fence and a bird house that's on a twenty-foot-high pole near the cottage.

I've left those three webs alone, being that they're not blocking a walking path, they're not in my way, and so far, the golden weavers haven't made any little sacks and filled them with hundreds (possibly thousands) of eggs.  When I see those sacks, I destroy them before anything has a chance to hatch.

I also thought that maybe some of the wasps would fly into those webs and be eaten by the spiders. Not a chance........ I've seen every other bug caught in those webs, but not one wasp. And those three golden weavers are getting quite plump, so they're eating well out there. They're just not feasting on the wasps.

The six cans of wasp spray that I bought last week are nearly all gone..... two are left, and one of those is only half full.  Without a doubt, for every wasp nest that we find, there are probably two or three that are going un-noticed.

When we first moved into this house, we used to have breakfast and lunch on the front porch in the warm (but not broiling) weather, unless it was too windy. These days, you couldn't pay me to eat out there.... it's not too windy, but it definitely is too waspy.... with a few spiders tossed in to make sure we're paying attention.