Tangled Branches: Cultivated
happenings in and around my zone 6b gardens in northern Virginia and in central Virginia
Friday, July 14, 2006
Assassin Bugs Must Die?
Any experts on Wheel Bugs or Assassin Bugs reading this? I'm overrun with them this year. So far I've learned that they eat Japanese Beetles (good) and Butterflies (bad). I've also learned they bite humans, even though humans are too big for lunch. I got bit by one yesterday and first thought it was a bee sting, except I didn't see any bees nearby. It felt like somebody heated a needle with a blow-torch and plunged it straight down into my finger. No bad after-effects, but I understand that's not always the case.
Anyhow, I thought I was seeing fewer butterflies this year, and then thought perhaps I just haven't been out looking very often, and now I suspect these bugs. So my dilemma is whether to let them live. I really hate to kill anything that kills Japanese beetles, but I really hate to have anything around that kills butterflies. What to do, what to do? My current thinking is to try to level the playing field a little. Get rid of some, move some closer to the Japanese Beetles, and let the rest stay where they are.
4 Comments:
I would keep them, and encourage them. They will keep the populations of less desirable insects in check.
It's unlikely that the assassin bugs would be the sole, or even the primary, cause of an observed decline in this year's butterfly population. This year's observed decrease could be a natural population fluctuation. As you note, assassin bugs are generalists; they're not specializing in butterflies, or the caterpillars which precede them. Loss of habitat, pesticides, and so on, are more likely to have a greater impact.
You could also make changes to the garden to increase its attractiveness to butterflies, and bring even more in. Food plants, the ones the caterpillars eat, are even more important than the flowers the butterflies visit.
Thanks, xris - that's the advice I wanted to hear.
Unfortunatley, I think I inadvertantly discouraged them. On Friday, I moved 5 of the wheel bugs to a Rose-of-Sharon that's a magnet for Japanese Beetles. They remained there through the evening, completely ignoring the Japanese Beetles. I haven't seen a wheel bug since. I know that I left one, at least, on the Eupatorium where they set up shop and from where I moved the five. But I haven't seen any there since Friday either. They hatched nearby the Eupatorium in the early spring, and I watched them get bigger and bigger and bigger, and never bothered to look up what they were until one bit me.
On the good side of things, I saw a nice fresh Black Swallowtail yesterday afternoon.
Correction. Make that Black Swallowtail a Spicebush Swallowtail instead.
i have nothing to add about the assassin bugs. As for the japanese beetlesmay i suggest spraying whatever plants they are munching on with....409....yeah the cleaning stuff. Seriously. the beetles were ruining my roses and since a soap and water spray worked on APHIDs on the lupines i figured it would would on the jap beetles on roses. AAAHHH but we were out of dish soap the day i got mad enough so i used 409. they stayed away until it rained then i just kept spraying the roses with 409 and after 2 weeks they stayed away. i saw a slight wilting on the rose leafs from the 409 but that grew back. the roses bloomed great.
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