When To Take Down Gourds?

[Davlyn]

I live in south georgia and my last pair of martins left the last of june, the
pairs of martins that I had this year which were 5 would come back usually
in the morning time and hang around a while going in and out of their gourds that they successfully raised there young in this season, but I have not seen any in about 2 weeks. So when should I take down my housing? Thanks

[Emil Pampell-Tx]

I have an established colony, so I always take down the housing about 1 week after the martins leave. I take them down quickly to make them last longer. Sometimes we get the thunderstorms with high winds in the summer, hurricanes, etc, so I take them down, put sevin into them to kill the bugs, clean them about a day later, and hang them up in a dry place for the winter.

[CUL Lou~Mich]

Davlyn. I'd say you could take yours down most any time now. Since you had five pairs, the location is known. If you were just trying to start a colony, then you should leave them up until all the PMs have flown South. I'd say it was your choice in this case. CUL Lou

[Davlyn]

Thank you both for your replies, than I feel like Ill go ahead and take them down and clean them up for the year. Thanks Again