What's bugging you, Mid Atlantic? summer 2014

EEEKK! remind me NEVER go where that thing lives!!!
I think earwigs mostly eat decaying plant matter (clean up crew) but I don't find them much in compost- Thank Heavens!!!!!!) and do find them in tight crooks on upper growth of plants (yuk, and why?)

I have a number of volunteer baby American Hollies in my shaded areas. Here they often have leaf miners and some sort of blackened leaves (disease?) but they are growing very well this year, though shape is irregular. It may take another decade for any to bloom or berry, so I can know how many are female.

I showed a holly clipping of my Randy/ volunteer hybrid holly, to an expert, and he pointed out scale on the underside (blush). It had a lot of them this spring, but otherwise seems healthy enough.

Sally the sooty mold is from the scale, like honey dew and aphids. Soap changes the viscosity of water and breaks the surface tension.http://indianapublicmedia.org/amomentofscience/the-floating-needle/

Today--I found 2 more bugs a Bumblebee of some sort--and a pretty big, black
beetle already dead. I have already picked up a few of these dead BB's.

Seems the time for these sacrificial deaths.....their life's purpose over...
Soon there will be many Swallowtail Butterflies as well--dead on my patio floor.

Here is some pictures of the BB's.

1--2--3--This one was still clinging to life--but, barely. It preferred being on it's back.
I tried to turn it right-side-up to get a picture...

4--this is the already dead black beetle--over an inch long...
I seem to remember seeing this before--and someone ID'd it back then too.

I am sure David will jump in.... G.

Edited to add that Karen's young, budding scientist, August, will be ecstatic to
get these. He always asks me--"Do you have any bugs for me??"


This message was edited Jul 21, 2014 6:08 PM

It is interesting that you find so many dead bugs, bees, and butterflies, Gita.

Welll---
I suppose they like to LIVE in my garden--so they also die in my garden...
Mostly--under my patio roof.

I don't go looking for dead bugs in my lawn or beds. My covered patio is good-sized
and the 2 big sky lights may be attracting butterflies and other critters looking for
tight places to lay eggs???? Not sure on this,,, The roof is quite high--maybe 10'--
and it slopes gently for water run-off.

I don't find all THAT many---just some....I try to look for them as I move around...
Also--I am NOT freaked out about picking up a dead bug.

Here are 3 different views of my Patio---so you can get the idea....
This patio is where i "live" and work--and pot and all that....

It's a very nice, homey patio! It's easy to understand why you enjoy spending time there! :-)

I occasionally find a bee that has died, but not very often. I think most of the pollinators that frequent my yard hide (perhaps in the meadow/lawn) when they are at the end of their life, and I don't see them.

I get bummed out when I see a bumble bee dead. It's sad :( The pollinators were hitting my dahlias last night pretty good and I snapped this photo with my phone while on JB patrol. It was cool watching the moth stick his 'nectar straw' (extreme layman's terms) in and out of the 'yellow stuff' (again, I don't know the terms)

edited to add: I almost forgot too. There was a JB on one of the dahlias and I was going to drown his rump but then a bumble came up an interrupted. The bumble was crawling all over the JB like he wasn't even there. It was funny, almost like the bumble was treating the JB as a second class citizen. At least that's what I made up in my mind....

This message was edited Jul 22, 2014 8:22 AM

laymans terms OK with me. That's a skipper
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skipper_%28butterfly%29

I think many bees die of old age anyway. They have a punishing work schedule!

Oh sweet, I always wanted to know what those were! I thought it was a moth. What is the difference between a moth and a skipper?

I have one group of late-blooming lilies that didn't bloom at all. Well actually, they had deformed half-blooms. What could this be? I googled lily beetle, but I'm not sure if that's what I have.

Revenge of the June beetles?!? Last night, a June beetle landed on me after I came inside, and this morning I found a live one in the toe of a garden clog. I wonder what they have in store for me next? LOL

SSG, I don't know anything about lilies, sorry. On other plants, I probably would suspect disease with those symptoms.

Jeff---

I believe these BB's are dying as a natural thing of their lives--like the Butterflies.

They hatched--They ate--they pupated--they emerged as butterflies--they found a mate and
coupled up---they laid eggs---and then--their life was over with.

Don't know the cycle of these pollinator Bumble bees...but they also were dying
because their job is done. Nothing was killing them!--
Natural causes--one could say....

SO--I find some dead. i do nor mourn.....they have contributed all they have to give...

G.

SSG, do the lilies have any other symptoms besides the deformed half-blooms?

Seq, sorry hope I didn't go overboard with too much info! :-( I just get excited about the skippers and want everyone to love them as much as I do! :-) BTW, the first time I noticed skippers in my yard, spring of 2013 when I first started gardening, at first I thought they were some strange bug infestation and wondered what I should do! I was like, 'what are these all over my flowers??' Then a friend advised me they were skipper butterflies and very beneficial to my yard--thank goodness for that friend! :-)

Muddy, are the June beetles similar to the Oriental beetles that come around the same time the JBs do? I have to say that the JB trap I got worked just as well with the Oriental beetles as the JBs, and since using it I have definitely been seeing fewer of both bugs in my yard. I still have the trap, but wrapped it up in a plastic bag and put it on the upper part of the driveway. But I have to say that overall I think it worked--it got the bugs off my Harry Lauder tree and there are fewer now on my rose bush, too. I wonder if the traps work with June bugs, too?


This message was edited Jul 23, 2014 6:25 AM

Interesting stuff Cat! Are those white butterflies then that are always flying around meadows and such? I always thought they were moths but now I'm thinking they are butterflies.

many common small white butterflies are European cabbage whites, which will devastate your cabbage, broccoli etc.

Moths are pretty much evening to nocturnal. I think there are some other day moths, are squash vine borers actually a moth? or a wasp? I forget.

Seq, the white butterflies are in the family Pieridae http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pieridae . This family includes all the various Whites and Sulphurs (orange/yellow butterflies).

One of the most common white butterflies is the Cabbage White or Small White. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pieris_rapae . The Cabbage White is one of the most common butterflies throughout North America and if you happen to be growing cabbages or related veggies, its larvae can be quite the agricultural pest.

The Checkered White (aka Southern Cabbage)
http://entnemdept.ufl.edu/creatures/veg/leaf/checkered_white.htm can also be an agricultural pest but apparently not as much as the Cabbage White.

This message was edited Jul 23, 2014 8:43 AM

Thanks Cat, I'm really learning here; probably forgetting much in the process though... :)

If they settle down long enough to look that close, I'll be sure to check it out!

Well--the JB's are destroying every Rose bud and bloom I have.

I have caught many in my soapy cup--but they just come back.

Cut the wasted buds off of my Roses.... the blooms were gone.
maybe the JB's will go elsewhere...YEAH? My perennial Hibiscus are all
starting to bloom. They like that too.....

What's the best spray to keep them off? Or--to kill them once they are on the blooms.
I should know--just asking others' opinions.
G.

Muddy, I agree--sounds like you shouldn't risk it if you're not seeing any JBs.

Last year (before I knew better about using pesticides) I did spray the JBs on my rose bushes. Didn't make a bit of difference for the JBs, but after that the pollinators stopped visiting the roses. :-( This year, my JB numbers are down markedly--I used both the milky spore powder earlier in the summer and the JB trap for a few days. I still have a few JBs on my rose bush, but they're leaving my hibiscus and Harry Lauder tree alone.

G: Captain Jack's Dead Bug Brew will kill them. You need to spray the plant when pollinators aren't active as they can be affected by the liquid product but once it dries, all is well. It's made of a bacteria that infects the JBs and kills them. I think it would take a few sprays though. I've been too lazy to stick with it and have opted to drowning the little jerks instead.

Jeff---

Never heard of that spray! "Dead Bug Brew"....Sounds gross....

I notice that the soapy water in my cup turns brownish after the JB's have
drowned in there. Wonder if they release some chemical as they die???
I always have to start with clean water and soap.



Cat--
Milky Spore takes a 2-3 years to show any effect. You would not see any effect in
a few months. Wishful thinking.....Look up how this this product works....

It was, most likely, your trap that decimated your JB population.

G.

They poop when they die G.

Here is more info about Captain Jack. Note that it does kill butterfly caterpillars, as well as moth caterpillars.
http://www.2ndchance.info/fleas-spinosadGarden.pdf

Here is more info about milky spore from a reliable source. http://web.extension.illinois.edu/blmp/news/news27553.html

Yeah I used the CJDBB to kill off whatever caterpillars were eating my Columbines early on in the season, worked great. Those caterpillars were voracious little jerks.

Columbine is host to the Columbine Duskywing Skipper butterfly, the Spring Azure butterfly, and several moths from the Owlet family.

I guess I wiped out a bunch of them then. Never had that happen before in previous years though. They were little green caterpillars about 1/2" long and 1/8" in diameter.

A paragraph from the link....
*****************************************************

How fast does it work and how long does it last?

Milky Spore begins working as soon as it is applied as long as grubs are feeding. Once grubs are infected they will multiply the Spore by several billion times and spread it further. In warm climates good control can occur in one to three years. Once established in a lawn, Milky Spore has been known to last 15 to 20 years.

*******************************************************

It still depends on WHEN the grubs are feeding... they need to be just under the turf to
be affected by the powder you just put down. Since the MS is put down in a 4' grid--
any grubs finding it would be hit-or-miss...

Glad you feel that it helped you somewhat......who knows?

Seq could have been the columbine sawfly or the skipper. I've heard that the sawfly cats eat from the edge of the leaf inwards. The skipper cats eat a hole in the leaf then work their way outwards.

Whatever it was completely defoliated plants. I think it may have been the sawfly though.

Probably the sawfly...

thanks, Muddy! I did find a lot of dead grubs while digging in the soil a few weeks after I put the MS down. Previously, I had been finding live ones, so I definitely think it worked.

Now for the mosquitoes... I'm with SSG--I feel like a mosquito snack bar whenever I stand out in the yard for more than a few minutes. :-b Spraying myself with Deep Woods Off helps for a few hours...

Found another effective bait item for the fly bottle trap- half a squished toad from the driveway. At least he gave his life for a greater cause. Seriously, if we could get a lot more people making fly bottle traps, we could cut down on these yucky things- the library is oddly plagued by them. But I can't go making my 'special bottles' and leaving them around the building. I can barely stomach to make one at home and hide it in the yard.
8^P