Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, May 7, 1990 TAG: 9005070221
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A/1 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
California, in its fourth drought year, just finished a winter rainy season that yielded only 55 percent of normal precipitation. Water supplies to central California farmers are being cut in half, and "drought cops" patrol coastal cities, citing scofflaws who defy lawn-watering bans.
It's weather only a bark beetle could love. The insects are thriving on drought-stressed trees across California. Last year, they killed trees containing 2 billion board feet of timber, and state Department of Forestry officials predict a similar toll this summer.
"In drought conditions, the trees don't produce the amount of pitch they usually do, so when the beetles drill into the trees, they're more successful at getting in and laying their eggs," said Don Perkins, head of the forestry department's pest management program.
The eggs hatch into larvae, which eat the trees from the inside out, then develop into beetles that fly off and lay more eggs.
"They can have three or four life cycles if you have a real warm, dry spring and warm weather in the fall," Perkins said.
Beetle-killed trees and tinder-dry weather have made California's fire danger the worst in decades.
"We have hundreds of thousands of large kindling stands," said Lisa Boyd, forestry department spokeswoman. "Things are as dry right now as we would normally see in August and September."
It's not beetles but bees that are annoying Northern California tourist towns around Lake Tahoe, where swarming yellow jackets last summer forced people from beaches and back porches.
Even more bees are expected this summer, prompting the South Lake Tahoe Chamber of Commerce to declare war. The group is distributing 5,000 bait traps filled with the insecticide diazinon.
Populations of the ground-nesting yellow jackets surge if hot, dry weather occurs in spring when the queen bee is starting her nest, said Roger Akre, a Washington State University entomologist. By August, a single queen can hatch out 5,000 workers.
In northern Nevada, officials are battling Mormon crickets, which can grow to the size of mice by devouring vegetation, bark, and virtually anything else in their path.
State officials hope to fend off the invasion - Nevada's largest since the 1930s - by spreading poison-laced bran and oil on eggs at the mouth of canyons. The crickets hatch in the mountains, then hop down into the valleys to feed.
by CNB