cicada killers like to hide or make
their nest underneath things
so either underneath flowers like you
have here sometimes underneath shrubbery
and it's hard to find their nest but
once you see them you can't mistake them
I'm going to lift this rock up or show
you down inside where the nest is and it
looks like a little pile of dirt and you
can obviously tell it's been dug up and
it's on the top left part of the screen
right now there'll be a hole inside it
the cicada killer goes out and finds a
cicada a full-grown cicada and it
captures it and it stuns it with its
stink and it carries it back to this
hole that we just saw on the ground it
lays an egg it covers it up and next
year when the egg hatches the larva
comes out and eats the cicada that's the
sustenance it needs until it's old
enough to dig its way out of the hole
and that's the ones that you see flying
around your house they're really small
maybe an inch long when they first come
out and they get all the way up to the
biggest ones I've seen have been about
two and a half to three inches
they look very ferocious very bierce I
thought I had a Hornet infestation for a
while but I've been realized after doing
some research and killing a few so I
could see them up close that they were
cicada killers and I've never been stung
by one I've gone out with
Hornet and wasp spray to kill them I've
gone out with a racquetball racquet to
kill them by just swatting them there's
other ways that you can kill them all so
that's there's no trap that really works
well like I said they're not harmful to
you they actually eat white flies so
that's what I hang out around my
gardenias if you've seen my other video
concerning my white fly infestation so
they really hang out close to my
gardenias and that's where I can usually
eradicate them with the racquetball
racquet pretty easily
but they're not really harmful because
they don't sting unless extremely
provoked and I've provoked them pretty
well still never been stung from what
I've read the male's do not have
stingers the females do and if they
sting you it's not a sting like a Hornet
or a wasp it's a pretty weak sting so
although they are frightening to you and
to your guests they're not necessary to
get rid of cicada killers only live for
two months during the year you won't
notice them until July and Georgia you
notice them early to mid July and then
they are usually gone by the end of
August I'm another nest down inside one
of the gardenia bushes get a little
better view of it again you can see the
granulated dirt and that's where they
take the cicada put it on the ground
lay the egg and then cover it up and
leave it for next year there's some
footage of one buzzing around and see if
I can get in close before he flies away
and I'll try to get the body of once I
can actually show you a picture of it
did you see they fly around really tight
to britches you'll sometimes see two or
three flying around together like
they're play fighting and that's usually
the less mature ones once I get older
they're dedicated to hunting cicadas
alright this is more of an adolescent
cicada killer I was able to get with the
racquetball racquet and then I sprayed
it with some horn and wasp spray to
preserve it usually I would step on them
but you can see the markings on the tail
it looks like he has a violent stinger
this could be a female I don't know how
to tell the difference but they really
don't sting you as I said before but
they're black with pale yellow almost
white markings really long wings thanks
that's how they fly really fast and
aggressively I actually have a double
wing it looks like antennae off the
front orange legs
and these markings will help you
identify whether you have Hornets or
whether you have cicada killers if you
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