What's bugging you, Mid Atlantic? summer 2014

Somebody on the forum identified the green thing recently as a saddleback caterpillar -- http://entnemdept.ufl.edu/creatures/urban/medical/saddleback_caterpillar.htm .

This message was edited Sep 8, 2014 6:29 PM

A saddleback moth, Huh! I'd never heard of one, and don't want to become reacquainted. What is most interesting is, I thought the banana I was grooming caused a rather sever allergic reaction on my arms. I had immediate burning, redness, and welting. I washed well, applied an aloe lotion, and took some BenaDryl. That was 2-3 hours ago and a lesser burning is still present but the redness and welts have subsided. This cute little fella is one to be avoided.

Thanks Devon!

Yeah, Ric!! you were not supposed to EVER touch those spines!
Too late now--after the fact--but do read the link above. vey informative...

As for the red beetle--I remember seeing these in or around the seed pods of my
hardy Hibiscus too. I don't remember anything much--except that it was
there to feed on some of the little bugs inside the developing seed pod

As you may remember my woes over all these yers about the weevils
that are found inside half of the seeds from my perennial Hibiscus.
These eat out the Germ--and those seeds are useless...

You do not see them right away as you are collecting the seeds. Later--
when you have bagged then, etc...you see them crawling all around in the baggie.

Anyway--I am only collecting seeds from the white "Luna" hibiscus right now.
Trying to think of a strategy to kill these weevils before they can do any damage.
been thinking of soaking all the collected seeds in a strong insecticide of some sort.
Something that would quickly penetrate the seeds and kill the weevils developing inside.

Any ideas? And--sorry about your rash from the Saddle Bug .

It is kind of cute, though....very unique...
Gita

Ric, sorry you had bad encounters with a Saddleback caterpillar.
My neighbors had a lot on some of their shrubs. I took a photo of one and Greenthumb ID'ed it and warned me not to touch it. I'm really glad I hadn't picked it up to photograph it!
I told my neighbors about it because they have a toddler who, of course, likes to grab things. I was surprised that they actually let the things continue to live.

This message was edited Sep 8, 2014 8:26 PM

yikes, Ric, so sorry to hear that! :-( Hope it feels better soon.

the red one I think is a nymph stage of some true bug. I had a bunch like that on blueberry bushes once, couldn't tell that they were doing anything

I have seen some Stink Bugs around the siding of my house.
Also--in and on the big seed pods of my Perennial Hibiscus.

Haven't seen any all year--now they are around....I squished one...Phew....

G.

I didn't touch the cat, just the banana where it had eaten and crawled. I don't want to think how bad actual contact would be.

Interesting. My neighbor said she had some sort of reaction after weeding near the shrubs where about 6 of the caterpillars were feeding. She's in her 3rd trimester and so probably is extra-sensitive to toxins of any type.

Butch---

Mamma Mia--my Pakistani neighbor wants to smoke them all to death--gone--
with a smoke torch.
She insists that that is what they do in Pakistan and that they will all be dead.
She says her husband knows how to do it.
I suppose he can do whatever he can do--as we both share this bush to some extent.
And--they do always have their 4yr. old G-=son around.

I had a hard time understanding what she planned to do---I thought she was going to
hold a burning torch somewhere in the lilac bush...
Finally---I "GOT IT"...Smoke them out!!! But--will that kill them? Or just chase them
away for a while and then they will come back.

There seem to be more and more of these hornets in the bush.
I really do not want this to repeat again next year. I still have not seen a nest of any kind.
but there is a lot of interaction between them.

Your help--or, at least, opinion. Anyone else is welcome too.

Thanks, Gita

There are a couple stems that the bark is already chewed off all around--
maybe a band of 5/8"--more than in one place. SO--they ARE building nesting tubes
somewhere. About how big or long would they be? I still do not see any....

I say go for it. If she says it works, it probably does. It won't hurt to try anyway.

Muddy---

I feel that she may be a bit too enthusiastic about this. I don't trust her...

If someone were smoking you out--would you sit around till you die?
The thing is--there are no nests yet--(that I can see) so they are free to fly away when
the smoke comes.
I KNOW smoke can kill a whole hive--IF the critters are in it.
But--if they are just flying around and doing their thing in my bush--who says
they will be killed?? I guess i will wait and see.....

Gita

Gita: For whatever it is worth, I Googled around a bit and found that smoking wasps out is indeed an accepted way to get rid of them.... http://www.wikihow.com/Get-Rid-of-a-Wasp's-Nest

Not sure I'd try it though.

Happy---

Thank you--that article was very informative.

What I have are European Hornets--nasty...nasty...

The problem is--I do not see any nest! it may be up in my Maple tree?
There is a lot of activity in the bush--I hate to even go near it.
DO NOT go through another bite suffering...

Maybe this will be a good topic of discussion at the swap.

Gita

You might have to sit awhile and gaze at the tree. Maybe you will notice hornets going somewhere up in the tree.

When we get yellow jacket nests in the ground, Mark has this trick figured out. He stands back away from the area and watches for movement. And he'll see where the yellow jackets are going to their entrance hole.

Most of the time, we are in constant motion around the yard, and not observing insects unless they are sitting on flowers.

I'm afraid smoking them off the lilac won't really cure it.

I stopped at a new (to me) produce stand. The vendor is Japanese. He burns an incense rope. I suppose to repel insects. I didn't see any insects around the fruit and veg.
I almost had a yellow jacket going home in the van with me- eek. maybe it was lurking around the bug free zone.

Sally---

My neighbor, Samirah, seems to know a lot more about these Hornets.
She says they have dealt with them in Pakistan. She is the one who
said to smoke them out.
I will see if we sell some kind of a :Smoke Bomb" at the HD made for Wasps.

Me? I may have to wait until all the leaves drop off my tree to see anything.
I have no idea how high they would build a nest--as my tree is pretty darn big.
The nearest limb on my tree is a good 7'-8' above the top of the Lilac bush.
I also have no idea how small the "nesting tubes" are that they seem to be building--
based on the observation of them chewing bark off the Lilac branches.

I DO Know one thing--i DO NOT want to get stung again.
That was a pretty miserable 4 days....

I am really sick and tired of this..... Gita

Sally, it's really common is East Asia to burn incense to repel mosquitoes. I have no idea if it actually works, though.

SS--
since I have you here-wiould you be Faerie and take Paul a pot of
camapanula Elizabeth he asked for?

Thanks...Gita

The leaves on two of my amaryllis bulbs died back while the rest of them were still going strong. I dug out the two bulbs. Each of them had a hole from borers of some sort. Yuk! Never heard of lily borers before.

Donner---YUK is right! That looks disgusting....

Did you see the culprit? How did it get into your bulb? Any idea?

Gita, I never heard of lily borers until I googled it and found this site: http://homeguides.sfgate.com/amaryllis-borer-24415.html

As I said earlier, each bulb had a hole in it. It was quite obvious that something had bored into it. Yes, the borers were killed. Disgusting.

Anybody who has Amaryllis bulbs outside over the summer should be careful with borers. I will watch out for them more closely next year.

By the way, Gita, lily borers also attack Clivias.





This message was edited Sep 22, 2014 5:33 AM

I think my Purple Leaf Plum has borers. I noticed sap dripping from about 10 places near the base of the trunk, and I read that I should dig beyond the sap to look for borers. I haven't had time to do that yet though.

Thanks, Donner---i will check my 7 pots of Amaryllis and two Clivias...
Sure hope all is well with them!
G.

Wow, very interesting Donner. I have 3 Amaryllis babies outside right now. Hopefully all is well with them.

It was a warm day yesterday. Loads of stink bugs were on the window trying to get inside. I sprayed them with Clorox, the most lethal thing I had. So now the bugs are either dead or very clean.

This colorful spider was building a web not far from the back entrance. It was rather big. The belly (whatever the scientific term is) was about 1/3 of an inch. I never thought that we had something so exotic looking in our region. It looked like that it really belonged to the tropics.

Normally something like this would totally freak me out, but in this case it might catch a few stink bugs :o).

clean stink bugs!! hahaha
very pretty spider.

son found a huge brown pupa on the ground, two inches long. I put i on ID forum. Flapdoodle says it is a sphinx moth pupa. they pupate in the soil so I'll bury it a few inches and let it carry on. it was far from the veg garden so i hope it is something other than tomato/tbacco hornworm.

You are very kind to have buried the pupa again. Sure hope the bug (whatever it is) won't repay the kindness with holes in the plants next year :o)

Lost 2 more Amaryllis bulbs (including a big one) to borers. Dug the rest up. They turned out to be borer free with the exception of one. I repotted them, ready for winter. They don't have to go through dormancy to bloom if there is no need to control their blooming time. I will just leave them this way until they bloom.




This message was edited Sep 29, 2014 7:11 AM

I saw a few assassin bugs over the weekend. They were all transplanted to a tree or the garden rather than our deck. I'm fascinated by them.

I almost forgot: I saw a Japanese beetle over the weekend! How weird is that?

This message was edited Sep 30, 2014 9:07 AM

Assassin bugs! That's what they are. I saw one in the garden this year and didn't know what it was. Are they rare? I don't remember ever seeing one before.

I don't know if they are rare or not but I've seen several this season. Probably 3 this weekend and I saw some babies earlier this summer. They have neon orange on parts of their bodies.

Didn't ric just post, recently, that he uses "Grub-X" around his Iris bulbs
to control Borers? Seems it worked for him.

How deep in the bulb do the borers go? Like an onion--that has layers and layers--
how many "layers" deep is your damage?

I recall reading somewhere that damaged parts of bulbs can be trimmed out,
then the bulb dusted with something ((Sevin?---Fungicide?) and allowed to heal over.

Can anyone substantiate this?

Gita

SSG, unfortunately I only learned about lily borers a week ago. I am not sure if I can keep the Amaryllis moth free by spraying them with insecticide. I will just have to keep a close eye on them next year and pick off caterpillars if I see any :o(. There are very clear photos here, especially the one that is making its down the leaf: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brithys_crini

Gita, the borers go all the way inside the bulbs. One of the bulb had a small borer that was only starting to make its way in. The damage was minor. So I kept the bulb. The 4 that got really damaged all had borers inside them. I simply cut them open to take a look. A more experienced person might have saved the bulbs, but I wasn't going to try. It just wasn't worth it.

I will consider planting Amaryllis with some grub control chemicals next year to see if that might help.

This message was edited Oct 1, 2014 4:04 AM

Donner, I asked one of my daughters to ID your spider and she said it is a Marbled Orb Weaver: http://www.insectidentification.org/insect-description.asp?identification=Marbled-Orb-Weaver

It's really unique-looking! Most of the ones I see in my yard are black and brown.

Thank you for identifying the spider, Muddy. That's it! A Marbled Orb :o) How interesting! That was also the first time I ever saw a big spider so colorful.

That's funny you mention that spider because my coworker was just talking about a spider like that yesterday. I showed her the pics on the link and she said it was the same one. She almost walked face first into its web....YIKES!

What are the odds of that ? I see plenty of the ones that are brown with a black X on the belly or back.

Yeah craziness. She lives in the woods and is always telling me about the giant wolf spiders she has down there. They are about the size of her palm! Creepy. Yet another reason to live in a suburban neighborhood.

I think she's exaggerating just a tad. But woods DO have more spiders.

If I extrapolate from the hunting spiders (small wolf spiders?) that I keep finding, when I weed or disturb the grass,my yard must house hundreds.

I've seen a large wolf spider before and they are no joke for sure. Honestly, you couldn't pay me enough to walk into her chicken house where there are tons of them. It gives me the creeps just thinking about it. She said that the chickens will devour them though if they happen to fall on the floor.