Bug Invasion Closes Tredyffrin Park Tot Lot

Capistrano has its swallows, Friendship Park in Tredyffrin Township has cicadas and cicada killer wasps.

The nasty-looking flying creatures have forced the township to temporarily rope off the tot lot at Friendship Park in Paoli with yellow caution tape.

The cicada killers have filled the sand in the play yard with their nests and for a few weeks each summer they come to life, hunt cicadas, kill them and bring them back to their tiny underground lairs.

According to Professor Chuck Holliday at Lafayette College the wasps that appear every year around July 15 have been waiting to hatch since this time last year.  The wasps are born from eggs laid in underground nests every summer. The larvae spends a year underground, sustained by cicadas their "parents" killed, burrowed into the sand, and then laid eggs on.  Every summer the new wasps dig their way to the suface of the sand and the life cycle repeats.

According to Holliday, it's very difficult to get rid of the pests, short of removing the sand. That's something the Township's Park and Recreation Board looked at last September after the tot lot was closed off for the same reason last summer.

The agenda item for last September's Parks and Rec Board meeting read this way:

Friendship Park: The cicada killers in the sand at the Friendship Park tot lot caused that area to be closed for several weeks. The Township is evaluating the cost of replacing the sand with playground mulch to prevent this issue in the future. Herbacides and insectacides are not normally used in the Township parks, however the closing of the tot lot in its peak usage season needs to be avoided.

It appears the only way to get rid of the bugs would be to dig up the sand they call home and replace it with another material. That's expensive and it obviously didn't happen for this year.

Editor's Note: This story came to my attention when a Patch reader sent an email that reads: "Hello - I was wondering if someone could find out why the playground at Friendship Park has been covered in caution tape for over a week or so now? Thank you"  Thanks for asking Rich M. and I hope this answers your question.  If YOU have a question about something you see going on around Tredyffrin and Easttown, contact Patch and we'll try to get you the answer.

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