Maine has a huge Brown Tail Moth problem. Besides the damage to the trees, the caterpillars have hairs that when shed and come in contact with skin or breathed in can cause some serious problems. You can read more about it here: Brown-tail moth - Wikipedia The moths prefer to make their nests and lay eggs in Oaks, usually near a body of water. This makes them particularly problematic to “camp” owners, and the use of pesticide near the water is prohibited. The best way to control them is to remove and dispose of the nests in the winter. Removal can be difficult for hard to reach nests. Enter The Nest Nabber, a nest removal device designed to be used with a drone. Outreach Robotics - Providing unique aerial robotic solutions My recently retired, and now bored buddy, has decided to start a small business offering nest removal service. There is one arborist already offering the service, but he is way busier than he can deal with. He has offered me a side job of being his general helper when needed for bigger jobs. Flying the drone and operating the removal tool at he same time can be difficult, so my job is to watch the video feed from the nabber and give him directions, up, down, left, right, rotate etc and then push the button to do the cut. Retrieve the nest when dropped. Manage the batteries for the drone and the tool. A set of batteries lasts for 20-30 minutes and takes 45 minutes to charge. We were practicing today, here are a couple vids.
Don’t imagine that’s the easiest thing to fly! Looks like you fellas make a great team! Good luck to you
Now that takes the cake, that is amazing! How much can you charge for that, just curious. How much equipment cost? Super interesting! Never heard of that bug and the shed hairs problem, that's bizarre!
I did fly the drone a bit without the nabber attached and it was pretty easy. My buddy had to go through specific training to get a FAA license to fly the drone commercially. He said flying it with the nabber attached is quite challenging. You need very calm conditions. Trying to get the correct perspective/frame of reference for the branch you are trying to clip, is quite challenging as well and that's part of my job and something we were trying to work out, hence the practice. We will likely need some sort of radio contact so that we can be in two completely different places and I could give him direction. The battery consumption of the drone with the nabber attached is about 2x normal ~ 20-30 minutes of flight time. He has 6 sets of batteries for the drone and a charger that should be able to keep up as we rotate through batteries.
The Brown Tail Moth is an invasive, introduced to the US in the late 1800s. Until about the last decade it was pretty much limited to a few islands off the coast of Maine. Recently it has made it's way to the mainland, likely a result of climate change. It is now found in every county in Maine and a few spots on Cape Cod. It prefers to lay eggs in Oak leaves as they are generally very tough and well attached to the tree even when the leaves die. The moth will lay the 4-500 eggs on one leaf and then kind of roll the leaf up with silk and then add more silk to attach it firmly to the branch. The removal service is done in the late fall and through the winter. The rash and respiratory problems from exposure to the hairs can be pretty severe. If there is a large infestation it can be difficult to even be outside near the infestation when the caterpillars are shedding the hairs. Large infestations can kill a large otherwise healthy Oak in a few years. There is one natural "predator" to the caterpillars, some type of mold that will grow on them and cause them to die, but the mold requires pretty specific weather to be effective, cold wet Spring weather will hamper an infestation but not likely eradicate it. The drone he is using now is an older model he bought used it was $5,000. A new state of the art drone capable of the work is $10-12,000. A set of batteries is $400 and he has 6 sets so that we will be able to rotate/re-charge them while working. The Nest Nabber attachment was ~$15,000. He plans on charging $150/hour for the service.
Worked with my buddy today nabbin some nests. This is the time of year to do it, although the weather can be a challenge, wind must be below 10 mph and the temp can’t be too cold, the drone and nabber batteries don’t deal with the cold well. My job is to man the nabber control and watch the video feed and give my buddy directions based on what I’m seeing, he watches the drone mostly, but sometimes will fly by looking at the screen. It takes a lot of communication/coordination between us sometimes, depends on how accessible the nest is. Then after the nest is cut he flys over the drop zone, drops the nest and goes back for another. I’m also responsible for retrieving the dropped nest and managing/changing the batteries in the drone and the nabber. The drone runs through the batteries pretty quick, he has a charger that will charge up to four at a time and keep four others warm ready to charge. He has more work lined up than will likely be able to get done before spring when the eggs hatch. Some pictures of todays job site. All of those leaves you see hanging on the oak trees are nests. Close shot of a nabbed nest Couple of videos from today.
