Hated seeing two-foot-long webby bags full of little maggots, ugly as sin and getting bigger every day, hanging from the old hickory tree that shades the house. Two of their bags were within reach of the ground. Had an urge to burn them.Tried matches. The web would not light. At last I hit on wrapping pages of newspaper around the webs and setting them on fire.
After that was done I finally looked up the fall webworm, Hyphantria cunea. They weaken all kinds of deciduous trees by skeletonizing the leaves. Turns out that burning the bags, after wrapping them in rags, is a time-honored way of getting rid of them. The bags that can't be reached from the ground can be torn open with a stick or rake so that birds may come and feed on the webworms.
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In Florida, they infest pignut and mockernut hickories and the pecan, which is also a hickory (but you knew that). Webworms get the first flush of leaves and then the trees put out a second flush that (mostly) do not get eaten. The result is that the tree works overtime to harness the sun, but still makes lots of nuts. And the first flush of webworms becomes the fare of the first flush of bird nestlings. Of course, the droppings of the webworms (called "frass") fertilize the trees' second leafing. Amazing how Momma Nature makes it all comes together!
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