these bugs were not hear last year, but now they are breeding heavily on the pods. What are they and how do I get rid of them?
Thanks
bugs on butterfly weed????
Your bug is the Large Milkweed Bug (Oncopeltus fasciatus) http://bugguide.net/node/view/12113/bgimage
but I can't help with getting rid of them!
Thanks you are right. I looked up milkweed bug and that is the exact bug. Read to spray them with soapy water, preferably Dawn. will try that tomorrow.
This message was edited Nov 3, 2005 5:39 PM
I get them on mine all the time and they will eat the smaller Monarch Cats sooooo I just grab them between my forefinger and thumb and roll them fast and "Schquisch" them little buggers. The younger stage for the same is an orange skinny body with pitch black legs.
PS: Schquisch them too. ;o>
I have never seen cats on the butterfly weed, don't know why. I am really disappointed. I have the gulf frit on the passi vine, but no monarchs or swallowtails.
Please, be carefull about spraying them with soapy water. I did that to my swamp milkweeds and they all got a toxic shock, leaves turned yellow with purple blotches, it took me 2 sprays to understand what was the cause. Try it on a single plant to make sure it is not phytotoxic to yours.
I sprayed them with soapy water (before I read your post) and the portion of the plant that was sprayed, died. I cut them back and the remaindered of the plant is good.
My 1st year with my milkweed I saw many cats but not since. I think I had no natural enemies or diseases that killed them young. Now, I have many monarchs, lots of eggs, and I can occasionally see a few tiny cats when I spot where they hatch and 1st start eating, but even these look like they may be dead and still on the leaf. Do the milkweed bugs really eat all of these tiny cats (I squash the bugs and there doesn't seem to be enough of them) or am I having a problem with some other disease? Anything else I can do? Thanks.
I had a lot of these last year too, never before, I just collected them in a jar and got rid of them, and there were almost as many in the next couple of days. Have you ever noticed how one year we will have more of one bug than another, maybe this was just our year for milkweed bugs, maybe they won't be as thick next year. I would like to know how to rid my plants of them too, have read a little on it and the only solution seems to me is smash or collect.
About spraying with soapy water. I've used Insecticidal Soap for years and found that spraying in the sun can cause leaf damage/burn on some plants. Now I use it sparingly and only in the shade or cloudy days.
Andy P
The Milkweed bugs were abundant in my yard this year too. It was a constant battle between aphids and them. I squished the big ones, with gloves on, and sprayed the small ones with insecticidal soap. I only use it in the evenings too tho because of the burning.
I tried a new trick this year for aphids, that worked pretty well. I got a big bowl and filled with water and a little soap. I'd dunk the top of the bowl in the water and swish it around. The aphids and milkweed bugs would get trapped by the soap and die. I was good about back afterwards and spraying the plants down with water tho.
My battle was hard fought but for no reason this year. I only had about 10 Monarchs and a few Queens this year, whereas last year at Christmas I had 40+ Monarchs and many more Queens than this year. We barely got thru the migration period and got hit by a cold spell that sent all my mamma's away. Then the milkweed I pampered all froze before anything could eat it. Well!! I can't say that I'll fight as hard next year.
Sheilalarry, do you use Bt in your garden?
Calalily, I am a true novice (3 seasons into gardening and learning every day). What is Bt?
Sheila
Calalily, Yikes! Just found a reference for Bt. Diabolical. No, I never used it but there was a large vacant lot with lots of standing water 2 doors down last year and someone might have used it there. But that would have been last year. Wind-bourne residual effect?
In the last month I have taken many of my small cats inside and fed them in a large group on the cut milkweed from my yard. They have all thrived and I just had the first dozen emerge as healthy Monarchs. So I have kind of decided it must be predator(s). Anything else, and I think they would have continued to die in the close quarters on the diet I gave them.
Thanks, Sheila
What are their preditors? I have read that they either look or they are poision to the birds, what other preditors are there? I didn't know that the milkweed bugs killed them until I started reading the threads, I definately need some enlightening here :-) I am somewhat a newbe to gardening outside, I am used to house pants, no light where I live, so now it is outside in God's Hands (like it wasn;t before).
I wish I knew. I understood that the milkweed bugs do not kill them, just eat a lot of milkweed. I also thought the cats were poisonous.
All I know is that outside, I get very few cats surviving out of huge numbers of eggs (I have several hundred milkweed plants and get multiple Monarchs a day laying eggs) and that most of them disappear while still at the 1st instar stage. I can see on the milkweed leaves where the eggs hatch and the tiny cat eats for a while. But when I move those cats I can find inside and feed them my cut milkweed, they all survive and thrive. So... not a virus or a bacteria or a parasite or nutrition or why wouldn't they die in the close quarters I have for them inside?
I have had this question out there for some time and am still not sure that I have an accurate answer as to what predator might be getting at the 3-4 mm new cats on the underside of the leaves, but I do suspect that it is another insect rather than birds. And not an insect that is eating milkweed leaves and accidentally gets them, since I see the evidence of hatching and early eating and missing cats on perfectly intact leaves.
Very frustrating, since the 1st year when I put in the 1st patch of milkweed this did not happen and I had so many Monarch cats thriving on my 30 or so milkweed plants that I had to go buy more plants for them so that they could eat!
the butterfly weed has been killed by the frost. Today, I saw these bugs on the honeysuckle vine. I suppose they are getting an early start and I will have quite a battle to get rid of them.
Sheilalarry how do you have your butterfly weed planted? I plant them all around my house. This year I saved so many seed and was wondering how I could sow them to have more food for the monarchs.
Mimidi, I propagated originally from cuttings about 4" long just stuck in the ground with a rooting hormone. These grew well. Then when I got seeds, I collected them and put them in the ground with just a little soil over them. These grew so well I had to thin extensively. They especially liked the full sun, but I have some in dappled shade. These plants love it in my zone, which I is in 10a. These are Scarlet Milkweed, which is the only thing I could find in nurseries locally. I just put some A. tuburosa (which the seed package called "Butterfly Weed") in the ground today to give them some variety. I'll see how those seeds do in a few weeks. I have Monarchs, often breeding ones, in my yard almost every hour of every sunny day. It is definitely fun to be working out there and have them flutter by a foot from my head, and occasionally land on me! Good luck.
Sheila
I have monarch cats still and noticed this weekend that the milkweed bugs are out in force. I squished so many bugs, but they are everywhere! I wonder if I could suck them up with a little hand held vacuum cleaner?
Look at this link I just found. http://www.louisianagardener.com/past_issues/feature.asp?MagazineID=23
The bug guy at E-nature said the milkweed bugs don't eat monarchs, so I did some more checking. This lady says that the yellow jackets eat baby monarchs, but the milkweed bug doesn't and they are good indicators of monarch migration.
Another link about milkweed bugs and monarchs http://www.wolfmoonpress.com/Essays/milkweedBBF.htm
Hmmm...I'm not sure I believe that tho. I've had milkweed bugs all "winter". They come for the milkweed and never left or bothered to DIE during our few cold days. I don't usually have Monarchs come thru my yard on their way back, just on their way to Mexico. I'd love it if they showed up in the Spring too this year! I'll let you know, but think that the Milkweed Bug is just an indicator that he knows I have milkweed. I've never seen them bother cats but they do suck the pods dry.
I would not kill the milkweed bugs... they usually seemed focus on the pods and not the plants nor the leaves.
I do wipe aphids off, if they get out of control with a paper towel. But I don't worry about getting all of the aphids... I just keep their numbers down enough so there is something left for the caterpillars to eat.
I have not had much luck getting caterpillars on butterfly weed. All of my caterpillars are on asclepias incanarta.... the butterfly weed is rarely eaten while incanarta right next to it is eaten down to bare sticks.
Joepye, the monarch cats like A. curassavica too. They strip them bare.
I never got around to doing anything with the aphids and suddenly they started disappearing. There are ladybugs eating them!
joepyeweed,
I have noticed the opposite happening with my A. incarnata and A. tuberosa. The butterflys nectar at the incarnata and the cats eat the A. tuberosa. I have even seen the cats eating my carrots flowers this summer and relocated the cats to some milkweed plants (don't they know what's good for them?)
P.S. I have aphids too but they don't seem to damage the plants. I don't bother with any bug control measures.
This message was edited Feb 10, 2006 3:28 PM
Branches, the cats you are seeing on carrots are Swallowtails, not Monarchs. Swallowtail host plants are anything in the carrot family like fennel and dill. Monarchs only eat milkweed. They probably crawled back over to their plant, or went and pupated.
Look at the cats closely the next time you have them. The Swallowtails are green, black, yellow, orange and white striped (varies) and have not antennae. The Monarch cats have 2 black antennae things on the front and back ends and are yellow and black striped.
It's great to have such a long growing season here but that gives the aphids a long time to live too.
This is a Black Swallowtail cat.
This is a Monarch cat.
thanks for the great info (I'm glad to see that my property is attractive to more than just one species)
So welcome! If you've got a host plant for a butterfly in your area, they will find you. Don't ask me how! With a place to lay eggs and some flowers for nectar, you'll have them all season.
These bugs look alot like ladybug larvae, which will prey on aphids. So, before you kill them, I would make sure that they're not ladybug larvae.
ON the other hand, they do look like they have legs, in which case I stand corrected.
I think the milkweed bugs sometimes eat the flowers on my milkweed as well as the seed pods. There's some info about predators and parasitoids of monarchs on the monarch site (see link). I've seen many caterpillars of different butterfly species disappear outdoors also. Between the predators, parasitoids and diseases, few survive to become butterflies. Because of this, I started raising some of the caterpillars in a protected environment. It's a great way of learning their life cycle, but of course not many people want to go to that much trouble.
http://monarchlab.org/research/PNE/pne.html#Predation
I don't sit and watch them, so I can't actually prove it, but I am personally convinced that the milkweed bug does a lot of damage to my milkweed! They suck the seed pods, but they are around before the pods appear, so they have to be eating something else. And they reproduce like aphids which is another clue to me that they are up to no good. I have already seen them out in my bed, that has nothing for them right now. I must find a way to get rid of them!
Linda, I do the same thing. Every time I decide I'm going to just let them survive outside, they start disappearing and I feel great guilt and bring them all back inside. I need to work on making a bigger and better cage for this year. Well, I mean I need to get my dad to make it. lol I think I'll go ahead and get started on that!