Oops here are pics
Early pest controle
Eww! My beetles are a really bright red on the top and black on the undersides. I get Swiss cheese holes in my Stargazer lily leaves as a result of them. They don't really look like your pics. It is possible that the wasp predators came along and interrupted the cycle at my house. I know we were in the area of a university field trial last year.
I really love lilies too, so I do totally understand that we all make our own choices about when to stop spraying and drenching. Lots of people I know won't grow hemlocks anymore but I am investing heavily in chemicals to save mine so I can have some privacy from neighbors.
Outlaw Heart - you might want to consider wearing good gloves next time you start touching the excrement of the beetles. I wash my hands twice with bleach but that's after regular gardening and not touching what you show on your hands. Your health comes first.
Uh oh!! I definitely washed them and used alcohol hand sanitizer... But that's a good point. I didn't really think of it as...."excrement" at that time. Lol I thought it was a slug when I first touched it, then I realized it was a larvae. I will use gloves next time! :)
Good! Even the gloves should be dipped in bleach after you touch things like that. It can be 9 parts water to one part bleach. I'd hate to see you scratch your eyes with a glove that had excrement on it.
Eww!!! Hahaha yeah, definitely gross. Not sure if you can actually see the worm in the middle of it on that one picture, but yuck! Super proud I handled this whole situation with out being sick! :)
A dip of your fingertips in bleach will give you the cleanest and safest nails ever. Then use moisturizer of any kind.
Glad you didn't come to any harm.
I'll skip looking for the worm in the middle since it's bed time for me.
Spinosad, like Neem oil, is organic and is a bacteriological insecticide for beetles. It does not come with a tome of precautions, and it has worked for me. Picking them off was not a satisfactory solution because by the time you see them to pick off there are lots of larvae ready to come up for dinner from the soil. They are not destroyed by cold winter weather.
There is a twofold reason for early spring drenching here.
We not only have Red Beetle but iris borrer.
The Bayer Tree and Shrub insecticide is used on emerging lilies but the iris as well. We have some dammage but I believe it could be worse if we didnt drench in spring and spray lilies in mid season.
Uggggg the larvae poop is just gross.