It’s time to be bugged
Published: July 15, 2008
Insect abundance is peaking, and there are many kinds to see and hear. Most of them are not pests.
Evening brings out lightning bugs. Females are down in the grass, lighting up their abdomens to attract the males flying around and flashing their own romantic signals. Snails, slugs and small insects provide food for lightning bug larvae.
Clusters of small reddish bugs have been spotted on mulch and on the sides of houses. These likely are immature box elder bugs, and they breed on certain kinds of maple trees including the weedy box elder tree. They cause no harm in lawns and gardens and, if they come indoors, it is only by accident.
The variety of butterflies in our gardens expands with each passing week. Adults feed on nectar while trying to avoid predators such as praying mantis, and butterfly larvae (caterpillars) feed on foliage. Plump black swallowtail larvae, also called parsley worms, can strip all the leaves from your parsley in a day or two. These striking caterpillars are banded in lime-green and black.
Midges are swarming and hovering over yards in groups numbering into the thousands. These tiny insects may resemble a fly or gnat, and they are mostly harmless. Once they finish their mating flights, midges will be gone.
Yellowjackets can be considered pests when they start nesting too close to areas of human activity. Otherwise, they are good to have around because they eat many caterpillars and other insects in your garden. There is no way to prevent yellowjacket nests. If you need to control these insects, apply insecticide after dark and be ready to run to the safety of your house.
Roses, cannas and grapes are among the many plants now being devoured by Japanese beetles. These green and copper-colored beetles are known for skeletonizing leaves. They eat everything but the larger veins in leaves, giving plants a lacey or brownish cast.
Assassin bugs seem to be quite common this year. These gray and red predators with long snouts are on the hunt for garden pests as well as other insects such as bees. They are able to bite, so be careful around them.
Ants are out and about scavenging for food and they may turn reproductive. Mating requires they develop wings and start swarming at times. Winged ants are not necessarily pests, and they go away in a short time.
Some aggressive ants found on the side of U.S. 29 were thought possibly to be fire ants. An alert citizen brought a few to me for identification, and they were actually pavement ants.
The crickets chirping at night will soon be joined by a chorus of katydids. They look like flattened green grasshoppers, and they live in the trees. Katydids sing in the hottest weather, and they continue into late summer.
Sphinx moths and similar huge insects will be coming around at dusk to gather nectar from night-blooming flowers. Porch lights left on at night will attract moths, walking sticks, lace wings and, possibly, a bell hornet.
Summer is the best time to notice the diversity of insect life in our area.
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You can kill fire ants with aspartame or orange juice and repel them with baby powder - Learn how to kill pests without killing yourself or the earth…...
There are about 50 to 60 million insect species on earth - we have named only about 1 million and there are only about 1 thousand pest species - already over 50% of these thousand pests are already resistant to our volatile, dangerous, synthetic pesticide POISONS. We accidentally lose about 25,000 to 100,000 species of insects, plants and animals every year due to “man’s footprint”. But, after poisoning the entire world and contaminating every living thing for over 60 years with these dangerous and ineffective pesticide POISONS we have not even controlled much less eliminated even one pest species and every year we use/misuse more and more pesticide POISONS to try to “keep up”! Even with all of this expensive and unnecessary pollution - we lose more and more crops and lives to these thousand pests every year.
We are losing the war against these thousand pests mainly because we insist on using only synthetic pesticide POISONS and fertilizers There has been a severe “knowledge drought” - a worldwide decline in agricultural R&D;, especially in production research and safe, more effective pest control since the advent of synthetic pesticide POISONS and fertilizers. Today we are like lemmings running to the sea insisting that is the “right way”. The greatest challenge facing humanity this century is the necessity for us to double our global food production with less land, less water, less nutrients, less science, frequent droughts, more and more contamination and ever-increasing pest damage.
National Poison Prevention Week, March 18-24,2007 was created to highlight the dangers of poisoning and how to prevent it. One study shows that about 70,000 children in the USA were involved in common household pesticide-related (acute) poisonings or exposures in 2004. At least two peer-reviewed studies have described associations between autism rates and pesticides (D’Amelio et al 2005; Roberts EM et al 2007 in EHP). It is estimated that 300,000 farm workers suffer acute pesticide poisoning each year just in the United States - No one is checking chronic contamination.
In order to try to help “stem the tide”, I have just finished re-writing my IPM encyclopedia entitled: THE BEST CONTROL II, that contains over 2,800 safe and far more effective alternatives to pesticide POISONS. This latest copyrighted work is about 1,800 pages in length and is now being updated at my new website at http://www.thebestcontrol2.com .
This new website at http://www.thebestcontrol2.com has been basically updated; all we have left to update is Chapter 39 and to renumber the pages. All of these copyrighted items are free for you to read and/or download. There is simply no need to POISON yourself or your family or to have any pest problems.
Stephen L. Tvedten
2530 Hayes Street
Marne, Michigan 49435
1-616-677-1261
When a man who is honestly mistaken hears the truth, he will either quit being mistaken or cease to be honest.
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