String of Pearls infestation!!

I bought a String of Pearls plant a few weeks ago. It was doing well and had a lot of new growth. However, a couple of days ago, I spotted a tiny insect crawling on one of the pearls... Now, I see a few of them crawing on the vines and on the soil, and many of them when I water it. They are small--less than a millimeter. They are brown. They don't jump or fly... I don't know what they are, but I can't have them in my house! Any suggestions? Could a pesticide work? How did this happen? I've looked through many sites of house plant pests, but none of them look like what I've seen. Please help!

Tina

It might be fungus gnats. They don't always fly around, so maybe you have them beat. The problem can be controlled by wiping them off with alcohol-dipped cotton swabs. If this doesn't work, or the bugs aren't gnats, then I would spray with a diluted insecticidal soap, gradually reducing the dilution until the problem goes away. Maybe this will help. You can spray to start if you wish, and skip the alcohol.

Hi Tina, I had a similar problem several years ago from a plant I was given as a gift, I try never to use chemicals on my plants but tried every natural remedy I knew to no avail, I know my cure sounds a bit severe but it worked and that was.
Remove the plant and soil from the pot, lay on paper, wash the pot very carefully making sure with a brush (old tooth brush) you get rid of all crumbs of soil, white salt etc left on the pot, rinse well and leave to dry.
Next shake the soil gently off the roots of the plant, then again, gently wash all the old soil off the plant roots and using tepid water, wash the vegetation on the plant, gently turning the plant upside down under the running tap till you think all the bugs are washed off.
Next get rid of all the old soil and any dead bits of plant, then re-pot the plant into fresh new soil specially for indoor plants.
I would not water, feed or do anything else to the plant for a couple of days, if no new infestation is found, give the plant a drink by placing the plant in a saucer of water and pour water into saucer, once the soil turns darker then this indicates enough water has been taken up by the soil. don't water again till you stick finger into soil and if soil is dry, water the same way, if wet, don't water, there are bugs who love damp soil and live on the decaying wet roots of over watered plants, there are some who live on the surface of damp wet soil and there are others who love just eating the foliage so, without knowing what these bugs are and I agree with others who think they are little gnats, it's best to err on the right side and wash all traces away and start from scratch again to try a good growing regime. hope this helps. Weenel.

Could also be Soil mites or Springtails. Google these.

Thank you all for the advice! I ended up buying some insecticidal soap and, so far, no more bugs! :)

Tina, well done, just keep checking so IF an infestation returns, you can treat it BEFORE it becomes a mega problem. Good luck. Weenel.