Absence of spiders.

Not sure what the situation is like in other places but apart from a few, those pesky spiders that spin webs across pathways and plant to plant , are relatively few this year, last year they were everywhere, and impossible to walk up the garden without getting caught every few feet.
I wonder if the cold weather last winter killed them off.

 

Not many here, but we have had the big one's in the house which Miss Jiff hates, we do have lots of woodlise out side

 

There's loads here, and they're bigger than ever. However I have not seen those white crab spiders that eat bees this year at all. Last year there were lots of them.
And come to think of it I haven't seen those small stripy spiders that jump either.

 

Thanks Michael, if we don't hear from you again we will know what has happened.

 

We have lots of 'em inside and outside despite my wife putting conkers on the window sills(I have shown her spiders on horse chestnut trees, but still insists they might deter them lol.

 

I tried the conker thing years ago. Didn't work then, either I've absolutely given up trying to evict our spindly spiders. They're in every ceiling corner of every room and take special delight in 'insulating' the light fittings 4m up in the open bit. For an insect with a tiny, pinhead body and hair-like legs they produce an incredible amount of silk. Fortunately, they don't poo much

 

Are these those ones that eat other spiders, bigger than themselves?
I tend to leave them alone.

 

One of my sisters does the same....conkers everywhere in her house!!!

 

Some years ago I saw an elderly couple collecting conkers in the hospital grounds, me being me, I had to say, you look a bit old to be playing conkers.

It was the first time I'd ever heard that conkers deter spiders, and they wanted them to scatter around the house.

 

I'm not sure what they eat! Dust molecules? We rarely get big, black, evil gallopers as they were known as in UK. Tiny little black crickets and vast quantities of shield bugs with the occasional worrying billipede Imagine a millipede on steroids.....boy can they move!

 

It's been so wet here throughout this year that I've seen very few insects apart from mozzies. Spiders outside are rare, and I've only come across two of the big black house spiders that start to appear just after harvest.