You may have seen some very large flying insects resembling giant yellow jackets flying around Mariners Village. Also, you may have noticed mounds of sand/dirt in the lawn and landscaped beds, especially near buildings 4, 5, and 6. The two are related.

These large wasps, called Eastern Cicada Killers, look like yellow jackets on steroids, measure about 2 inches long, and are somewhat menacing in appearance and behavior as they zoom around you. The good news is 1) they are very beneficial and 2) they are relatively harmless. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_cicada_killer.

The Cicada Killers are beneficial because they do just that—kill cicadas. Cicadas damage cultivated crops, shrubs and trees by sucking the sap. Female Cicada Killers kill the cicadas to feed their young. The mounds that you see in the landscape are the piles of sand and dirt that the females have dug out of the ground when they created burrows in which to lay their eggs and stockpile dead cicadas to feed their larva when they hatch.

While the male Cicada Killers seem menacing and aggressive as they fly around seeking fertile females (of their own species) with which to mate, they have no stingers and are harmless to humans. Female Cicada Killers can produce a mild sting that they use to paralyze cicada, but the females are passive and will not sting humans unless they are picked up and squeezed, which I can’t imagine anyone doing, or stepped upon.

The adult Cicada Killers will be with us for about 2 months and will then disappear (die) by mid-September. We are not planning to exterminate them, as they are beneficial to the environment, and poisoning their burrows would likely be marginally effective, anyway.