Notes from the Green Truck

For most northern New Jersey families, Labor Day is summer’s last hurrah. School schedules and chilly fall weather will soon take over, replacing summer barbeques and outdoor games. But the outdoors still beckons on Labor Day weekend. Unfortunately, late summer is also the time of year when yellowjackets become most aggressive. These vicious, stinging wasps [...]

As summer wanes, always aggressive yellow jackets turn particularly hostile in August and September, presenting a serious risk to northern New Jersey residents. Yellow jackets are a particularly aggressive species of wasp. Primarily feeding on insects and spiders, yellow jackets also have a taste for sugars and can be a problem at outdoor picnics and barbecues [...]

What’s black and yellow and goes buzz? Most Bergen County residents would probably answer, “a bumble bee”; but many stinging insects look amazing alike to the untrained eye. Honey bees, bumble-bees, carpenter bees, European hornets and yellowjacket wasps all have distinctive black and yellow markings but very different behaviors.
They may look alike, but bees and [...]

The loud buzzing first alerts Bergen County homeowners to their presence, but it is the perfectly round, 1/2-inch diameter holes that warn northern New Jersey homeowners that carpenter bees have begun a construction project on their property. Carpenter bees are named for the perfectly round holes they drill into wood, holes so precise they look [...]

Most northern New Jersey homeowners in Bergen, Morris, Passaic and Hudson counties first discover a carpenter bee problem during spring home maintenance chores. If you’re cleaning gutters or scrapping paint and notice perfectly round 1/2-inch diameter holes in a porch roof, soffit, siding, deck or wood furniture, you most likely have a carpenter bee problem. [...]