Posted on 06/21/2008 8:06:46 AM PDT by GreenAccord
(The background is the close up of a chaise lounge pad)
What gets rid of them?
It’d be a big operation for a whole tree, but on roses, plain old soapy water kills em deader than a doornail.
Just get some sort of sprayer, put a bit of dish soap (like Dawn) in it and fill the rest with water.
I read that lady bugs are the first line of defense against aphids. Here’s the bummer; A day after last week’s Sevin treatment, guess what the pesticide left dead all over the patio?
They will be parasitized by the parasitic aphid wasp in a few days. It is all part of the big game.
You can order boxes of the orange spotted lady bugs or parasitic wasps and turn them loose in your yard. Lady bugs, parasitic wasps and lacewings feed upon them. If you have a sufficient population, they will naturally attract one or more of these natural predators anyway.
Does Al Sharpton know about aphids being held in bondage? It’s not just, I tell you! :^)
I sent that website an email with an image earlier today. Of course, I’m getting a much faster response right here on our site. Thanks for the tip, though.
I thought it was lighter fluid and a shaver...
The Chinese beetle was imported to control aphids...those beetles have now increased their numbers to almost biblical proportions. No we have aphid AND beetle problems.
Look carefully — those aphids are White! But someone like Tom Hayden will probably take up the Cause with a slogan like “Save the Aphid Six Million!”
Perhaps an aphid defense fund — Soros could finance it.
Man, if these bugs are falling in a river from these trees, I would LOVE to be there with my flyrod!!!!!
If they are aphids they will be very bad for your flowers/garden though. Here’s a garden ping gardengirl and gabz.
It’s been a long time since I dealt with bugs on any large scale but I do remember that aphids aren’t particularly harmful. What they do do (or is that do-do?) is produce a sort of honey, kinda like bees. That honey attracts other, less pleasant bugs such as ants, which will actually herd the aphids and milk them of the honey.
Ladybug larvae (which don’t look very much like ladybugs) eat aphids like a kid eats cookies. The adult ladybug doesn’t eat anything, it’s too busy making more larvae. Lacewings eat aphids too as do several other beneficial bugs, the names of which I forget right now.
Aphids are a fact of life. You can get rid of them for awhile by using insecticide but they come back quickly, stronger than before. There are places to buy ladybugs and lacewings and the ahids never seem to get so strong they are immune to them. Check with an agricultural extension service office from your county or state to find out where to get the good bugs.
When I was working in that field we were using Parathion on bad bugs until they started getting stronger. Then we went with Malathion, Sevin and a whole witches brew of stuff. It finally came down to a decision between burning the trees or chasing each individual bug down and hitting it with a hammer. Go with beneficial bugs if you can.
He is not only a climatology expert, but is an expert on entomology.
This Man-Bear-Pig knows his bugs.
I got two sets of lady bugs and I thought most of them had flown away, but I'm still noticing them all over my yard over a year later so maybe they didn't fly very far.
heh heh heh...you said homo...heh heh heh
Bad for some trees too.
They poo everywhere, sometimes leaving driveways and sidewalks black.
It is interesting to watch wasps apparently farm these aphid colonies. Don’t know if the eat the aphids, but they seem to go after the sugary aphid secretions.
Oh, it's worse than that! Order "Homoptera" is so-named for the shape of the rostrum (a beak-like mouth part) which is used for sucking the juices out of... oh, never mind...
hubby is out fishing as we speak/I work. He got rained/lightninged out—had to come off the boat, now he’s fishing off the dock where he works/Marine Fisheries. Storm is almost gone. we really need the rain, didn’t get much.
girlangler—you’d love his job! He gets to fish all day, takes measurements, and gets paid to do it! He loves it. He gets to shock and see what floats to the top so he knows where to fish on personal time. Last summer the water was so salty the shocker wouldn’t work.
Spray bottle, water, one or two drops of liquid soap and lightly mist your trees. That should take care of it.
Or you can take off and nuke the place from orbit if you want to be sure.
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