• Welcome, Guest! We hope you enjoy the excellent technical knowledge, event information and discussions that the BMW MOA forum provides. Some forum content will be hidden from you if you remain logged out. If you want to view all content, please click the 'Log in' button above and enter your BMW MOA username and password.

    If you are not an MOA member, why not take the time to join the club, so you can enjoy posting on the forum, the BMW Owners News magazine, and all of the discounts and benefits the BMW MOA offers?

Motorcycle Cover Ecosystems

OK, I know this is only minimally to do with motorcycles or BMWs, but...

I have been amazed by the variety of fauna that live on my motorcycle cover the last few months. It started with a variety of smallish spiders, some of which made web nests on the exterior and a few tiny fellows that moved in around the dash/headlight mount. They moved on (some needed encouragement), and now every day the past two weeks I'm finding caterpillars on the cover. They seem to like the webbing the spiders left behind... I think they're eating it!

Pics below... anyone else have an ecosystem associated with their bikes?

motorcyclecoverfauna1.jpg


And approaching the old webbing... snack time?

motorcyclecoverfauna2.jpg
 
Under the cover and into the airbox, or electrical box, or some other nice secluded place. Careful when you start it (if it starts) in the spring.
 
i once had a family of coyotes living in my my airbox, but other than that, no.
 
Under the cover and into the airbox, or electrical box, or some other nice secluded place. Careful when you start it (if it starts) in the spring.

Yeah, this thought occurred to me too... but haven't found any cocoons yet.

Hope it will still start in the spring since I'll be riding right through the winter... a benefit of living in California!
 
Yeah, this thought occurred to me too... but haven't found any cocoons yet.

Hope it will still start in the spring since I'll be riding right through the winter... a benefit of living in California!

A lot depends on where you live. When we lived at Lawrence, Kansas we had problems with the variety of wasps known as "mud daubers". They make hard little dirt/mud nests. I had them in the shop, occasionally in an odd sport on one of the bikes.

Most recently I spent a day removing, disassembling, cleaning out mud dauber nests, and generally making work again the furnace for a motorhome that spent too much time parked in Kansas.

The opening they go into only needs to be as big as a wasp, but the chamber they build a 3 inch nest in can be really hard to get to through that itty bitty opeining.
 
We have the problem with wasps and yellow jackets in the summer taking over snowmachines that are stored with covers in place. The little devils like to build pumpkin sized nests under the covers. My policy is not to remove a cover until we've had a freeze.
 
Back
Top