By Scott Jenkins
sjenkins@salisburypost.com
What’s the buzz in eastern Rowan?
That would be the gigantic hornets’ nest in J.C. Hilton’s backyard.
J.C. and his wife, Pamalee, have a pretty sizeable spread out on Fishpond Road. And it’s a good thing, because some hornets chose the Hiltons’ property as the site for what, in a photograph J.C. brought into the Post recently, appears to the hornet version of a condo tower.
J.C. figures the hornets started construction in the spring, but he didn’t notice the monstrosity until his grandson asked him what it was.
“It wasn’t quite that big” at the time, he said, “but it got bigger all the time.”
The nest hangs in a Bradford pear tree about 150 yards from the Hiltons’ home. J.C. said he’s mowed under that tree, with the nest just a few feet above his head. Other than necessary yard maintenance, though, he doesn’t plan to get near that thing. Neither does his wife.
“They’ve been in and out. I’ve been watching them,” he said of the hornets inhabiting the structure. “My wife wouldn’t get up too close to take the picture.”
It’s just a summer place, though. J.C. says according to the reading he’s done, the occupants will die in the fall. All except the queen, which will burrow into the ground and wait for a new year and a new construction crew.
When it’s vacant, J.C. said, he plans to take the nest down and donate it to Horizons Unlimited, where a teacher wants to put it on display. He can see why. He’s had to deal with nests before, in his yard, in his workshop, in the woods near his house.
But none of them were as big the one he’s got now. It’s the biggest nest he’s ever seen. He knows that, and for now, that’s all he’s going to know.
“I don’t plan on measuring it,” J.C. said. “I can’t run that fast.”