Mesquite Bean Alert!

Mesquite Bean Alert!

What do pack rats love more than any other food?  Mesquite beans!

Bean stash under tile on roof

 Mesquite beans are ripe right now and all the pack rats will be busy creating their stash for the year.  A single rat can collect bushels of beans. 

Forget the poison,  the bait box is a great place to hide mesquite beans

 The rat will stash  there beans not only in their nest, but also any place close by.

After all it is a storage closet.

 If you find a collection of mesquite beans, there will be a pack rat nest close by.

There is a garden hose under all those beans.

Over the next few months the rats will move all the extra beans into its nest, and if there are too many, they will carefully chew the bean pods to remove the just the seeds.

The bean stashes make this the easiest time of year to spot pack rat nests in thick dense plants like rosemary, bougainvillea, junipers and oleanders.  The actual nest may be hidden under the brush, but the bean stashes are often visible.