New Insect Pest for the S.E. USA

[jk_lewis]

We in the Southeastern United States have a serious new imported insect pest to contend with. It is called, among other things (some unprintable) the Kudzu bug.

Details at:

http://ibonsaiclub.forumotion.com/t528-rogues-gallery-of-bugs-and-critters-with-a-few-heros-too

 

[edprocoat]

You know what I have had a terrible problem with the last two weeks here in central Fl., beleive it or not some big red wasps have been chewing the leaves on my barberry, my junipers and my little vomitoria schillings holly and they love the little flowers on my Fukien Tea? I assume they are using the material for their nests, but these things have been a pest! I have killed several by swatting them to the ground and crushing them with my foot, very satisfying but hardly a deterrent. I have never seen this before, hell theres an entire orange grove 200 feet from me to the west and a large forest a mile to the south, why do these things need my tiny potted plants.

At least they have left my Catlin elms alone.

ed

 

[rockm]

That kudzu bug looks like a problem. I hope it doesn't make it up here. I also hope we have whopper of winter this year to kill this kind of crap off.

Ed,

I don't think the wasps are eating the leaves of your trees. They are predators. They don't eat plant material, although they do scrape wood off of old fences and other exposed wood (and sometimes plant stems) to make the "paper" that forms their nests. If you have that many of them, you've probably got a growing nest of them in your immediate vicinity (locate it ASAP --look under eaves and fence corners, etc.)

I have plenty of them around here. I consider them valuable, since I've seen them attack and consume caterpillars and even hunt scale on trees. I don't bother them (unless there is a nest in a location I pass every day-then I kill the nest off. Getting stung multiple times is no fun ;-)

Every year they scrape the surfaces off of fences and other exposed wood in my backyard, especially after rain softens it up for them. I've occasionally had them do that to deadwood on bonsai, but only on deciduous trees. Pine deadwood is, apparently, too tough for them.

 

[edprocoat]

I found the nest, quite by accident, under my RV fender! I was getting some things stored when I felt several little tingles at once, I was stung six times. It was then war, I scraped the nest off with a putty knife and killed a dozen or so by the swat and stomp method, and then recruited the help of the water hose. I think next time I will buy some wasp spray killer as now I have about 15 painful welts on me. The wasps bodies are littering the landscape and I feel triumphant, yet I know that I was in a battle.

Rockm, I actually seen one chewing my holly and another chewing the white flowers on my Fukien Tea, at first I thought it was getting pollen like a bee, but then I noticed it was actually chewing the petals of the flower. Then the little blossom fell off and I applied the swat then stomp method of execution on his worthless wasp body. The wasp nest was full of wasp larvae and semi dead spiders. I assume the spiders was for the larvae to eat on as it developed, the spiders were alive but like in a coma. I have noticed about a dozen leaves with the tips chewed off on my Barberry and assumed the wasp was chewing that too.

ed