Take a look at the link below, from WIKI ANSWERS. It has a good bit to say about orange oil, and what kind, and also a few other methods of killing these critters. Including heat....but that would be in a house with wooden framing etc, not out in the ground. If you have a huge hot water tank, connect your garden hose to the drain (after turning the tank up to the max and getting the water the hottest you can) and try it. Couldn't hurt. I think what you want to do is kill the queen. So jabbing a sharp stick down into the middle would be a good way to penetrate deeper. But read about the orange oil just in case. Here is a link that might be useful: Does orange oil kill termites?

Hi! Congrats on the nest. What type of hummies do you have? From the photo on your website they look like Rubythroats to me, but since that's all we have here in the East, I'm not good at IDs. I have a cousin who lives in the Hollywood Hills, also. If I can remember the street he lives on, I'll let you know. There's another hummingbird person you might want to compare pictures with: Frank J. I'll put a link below to the other forum many of us are on. He goes through something like 125-150 lbs. of sugar each season. Can't recall the name of his town (something like Mountain Center), but it's north of LA. He must be on a flyway because he gets hundreds of the humbrats. See if this link works: http://www.network54.com/Forum/439743/ Keep us posted on Mom and the eggs :-) LindaSkyview Western NC

Well, yesterday I decided to go a little deeper with my investigations and set off for the new nest site with binocs and the spotting scope. I hate messing with the tripod, and it's tough to be able to quickly pan left to right if something nmoves, but boy you feel like you are right next to your subject!! I was in for yet another surprise. Sure enough, a single eagle was poking around on the ground after something when I got there. The bird continued for a short time, flew up to the nest, and then began climbing up into a thermal . Immediately after this, I spotted the second bird rising up from a group of trees to the north, following the first. I hadn't been able to see this other bird so I was excited to see both were around. I had my sister on the cell phone giving her the details when the third bird appeared. I was certainly not expecting this. The three were rising incredibly fast...the first two were already small specks, and I had quit following them with the binocs. By the time I noticed the third eagle joining them, it was too late to say for sure if it had the white head and tail, but I think I did make this detail out before it got too high. Not being 100% certain, I can't say whether it was a juvenile or an adult. At first I tried to tell myself it had to be a turkey vulture, but there was no mistaking it and it soon caught up with the first two as they drifted off to the west. But what the heck was a third bird doing at the nest site? I guess I have questions for an eagle specialist....I think I read that they are monogamous. Was this a hopeful interloper? Maybe the other nest two miles away has a male that swings....How long does the chick (chicks if it's a really good year) from a single season hang around after it fledges? And of course, this wasn't last year's bird at all if it already had the white feathers. I guess one thing that needs to be done is to atake out the old nest back at the highway and see if there's a white head hunkered down in there. It's possible we have been missing the activity and sitting is already taking place. Later, two of the three birds did return to the nest, with one sitting on the nest itself and the other taking up a post at the perimeter. Then it got too dark for the scope and I decided to pack up and head home. So , the story continues!! BTW, several people stopped to see what I was doing, and a few of them were people I know who live right across the field from the nest/s. I managed to get some good info from several of the ones who stopped. Amazingly, the couple who live closest to the site thought the smaller nests were swan's, and had not even noticed the huge monster so out of place there in the middle of them. When I told them it was an eagle nest and that there was a bird on the nest right now and held out the binocs, they just said how nice and drove off. Before they left though, I did ask them if they could recall what month the herons had been coming back to the nests, and they said closer to April. That was the time of year when we first found the rookery, and the leaves were just coming on. Then another fellow pulled up, and seemed a bit more interested. As it turned out, he had just been in charge of logging this same area last year (yippee) and decided at the last minute to leave the few big trees right around the site. He said you could walk right up underneath it all (although the mess and the ruckus was unbelieveable)and they didn't even seem to notice. Then in the fall they just vanished. He thought something bad must have happened but I wonder if they didn't just fledge and move on. so that's the story for now.

In case the eggs are still OK - maybe you can try moving the nest? I'm not sure if it's possible to reach or if the parents will accept it. But most of the the time it works. I have personally made a little move/remaking a fallen open cap nests with chicks in it, and once I moved a starling nest with eggs from the hole under the roof. I moved it because the chicks were falling out of the hole and it was not the best nesting site. First I screwed the birdhouse to the wall in such a way that the hole in the birdhouse was as close as possible to the hole the birds were using. After that I moved the nest with the eggs into the birdhouse and sealed the hole under the roof. I watched the parents - they started going inside the birdhouse after a very short time. I gave them a few days to get use to the new nesting site and after that I moved it to a pole about 4' from the wall where the house was originally located. They accepted it again and raised chicks from the eggs I moved. You can probably do the same for your birds. If its fails - well, as you said, maybe it's for the best.