Saturday - September 24, 2011

Bugger Off

Stink bugs hibernate. When things finally warmed up this Spring, I was cleaning piles of them out of the ceiling fixtures at my offices every week. Here we go again, right, another year of bug plague.

WRONG. There have hardly been any stink bugs around all Summer. I don’t think we’ve had more than two in the house since April, and last year we were getting half a dozen in a day, regardless of any precautions we took or poisons we laid down.  This year nature has provided us a weapon against this ChiCom offensive, and we have Praying Mantises (Manti??) everywhere. Big ones, very well fed.

I snapped the above picture just a little while ago. It’s crappy, but that’s because the Mantis is only a 4” bug and I had to set the camera on maximum zoom to get the shot. But other folks have made the same connection, and quite a number of people have captured really good footage. Funny though, I haven’t heard a word about this on the news, and we were getting daily reports on the Big Bad Bug Threat last year. (Gosh, I wonder whatever happened to the bed bug issue in New York City? Not a word there either)

Then she asked me a question that I didn’t know the answer to; “If the praying mantises that are also on my rose bushes are insect eaters, will they eat the stink bugs?”

“Well now, I don’t know”, I said. “Stink bugs are pretty stinky and nasty creatures, I can’t imagine the mantids would eat them but I’m not really sure.”

Later that afternoon, I received an e-mail from a longtime listener to “In the Garden with Andre Viette” that had an attached photo of (drum roll please) a praying mantis chowing down on a Brown Marmorated Stink Bug!

Whoa, what an amazing shot and what a coincidence that he caught it on “film” and happened to e-mail it to us the day I got this question!

Thanks to Nicholas R. of Copper Hill Images for these incredible photos! And thanks for clearing up the mystery of whether they eat stink bugs.

So it seems that praying mantises do find these nasty bugs rather palatable!

You can find several little videos of mantises eating stink bugs on YouTube, along with similar vids of bats and spiders chowing down on same. Just goes to show you how little the “experts” really know: last year at this time we were told that the Brown Marmorated Bastard had no natural predators in the USA, and it’s revolting aroma would protect it from most animals. B. S. They forgot to take into account that Nature is flexible, and to animals that eat bugs for a living, stink bugs are the olives on the smorgasbord of life.

Now the plague has shifted south to Maryland ...

Stinkbugs have been most severe from Prince George’s County to upper Baltimore County. So far, southern counties like Calvert and St. Mary’s have been largely spared. Next year will be different.

An entomologist at the University of Maryland warns that we can expect a plague of Biblical proportions in years to come. Next year, they’re anticipated to spread statewide, causing damage three times more severe.

A number of research projects are under way investigating natural predators of the stinkbug and the use against them of safe pesticides with short residual properties. Until then, swat them, stomp them or drown them in soapy water.

Dear Maryland: Get yourself as many Praying Mantis egg cases as you can, get some bats, and let the Wolf Spiders do their thing. And keep spraying.

The bug sellers don’t think that Mantises are that great a solution, but there has not been any widespread residential spraying going on here. Yes, it was a bad winter, but as I said there were tons of stinkers in the early Spring. Now there are none. And with all the rain, things have been growing like mad here, so you can’t say that there hasn’t been any food for them. What else can it be?

Um, could it be Satan poison? The EPA approved an emergency measure around the end of June that allowed farmers in this area to use just two sprayings per year of Dinotefuran, an insecticide used in Asia, and also allowed the use of the botanically derived poisons Pyrethrin and Azadiractin.

WASHINGTON –On June 24, 2011, EPA approved, for emergency use, the insecticide dinotefuran (trade names Venom and Scorpion) on tree fruit to help manage populations of the brown marmorated stink bug, an invasive insect that has caused extensive yield losses in tree fruit production in the mid-Atlantic region. The approval, known as an emergency exemption, applies to Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, North Carolina and New Jersey. Under the exemption, producers of stone fruit (such as peaches, plums and cherries) and pome fruit (including apples and pears) are allowed to manage the brown marmorated stink bug with two applications of dinotefuran by ground equipment per season.

“EPA is very concerned about the impact of stink bugs on agricultural production and will continue to monitor the problem and provide growers safe and effective tools to help manage this pest,” said Steve Owens, assistant administrator of EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention. “We are committed to continuing to work closely with the agricultural community to address this very serious problem.”

Under the emergency exemption provision of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act, states can petition EPA for the use of an unregistered pesticide on a temporary basis if it will help alleviate an emergency pest problem. Before approval, EPA must be able to support the use from a health and safety standpoint. EPA has assessed the risks of the exemption involving dinotefuran and has made a safety finding for the use. Dinotefuran is already approved for use on leafy vegetables.

Also, on June 21, 2011 EPA approved an additional use for an insecticide that may help manage stink bugs in organic production systems. The new product contains azadirachtin and pyrethrins, which are derived from botanical ingredients. This product is now approved for use on many crops where stink bug management is needed, and it can be used by organic farmers.

Dinotefuran is also a bee killer, and with the decline in honeybees lately it should be very carefully used. Azadiractin is a larval growth inhibitor map from the seeds of the Indian evergreen Neem tree, and pyrethrin is a straight up poison made from chrysanthemums.

But there aren’t really many farms near here. And yet the stink bugs are gone. I credit the manti.

Posted by Drew458     on 09/24/2011 at 01:30 PM   
Filed Under: • Animals •  
• Comments (1) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

DISCLAIMER

THE SERVICES AND MATERIALS ON THIS WEBSITE ARE PROVIDED "AS IS" AND THE HOSTS OF THIS SITE EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMS ANY AND ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF SATISFACTORY QUALITY, MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, WITH RESPECT TO THE SERVICE OR ANY MATERIALS.

Not that very many people ever read this far down, but this blog was the creation of Allan Kelly and his friend Vilmar. Vilmar moved on to his own blog some time ago, and Allan ran this place alone until his sudden and unexpected death partway through 2006. We all miss him. A lot. Even though he is gone this site will always still be more than a little bit his. We who are left to carry on the BMEWS tradition owe him a great debt of gratitude, and we hope to be able to pay that back by following his last advice to us all:

1. Keep a firm grasp of Right and Wrong
2. Stay involved with government on every level and don't let those bastards get away with a thing
3. Use every legal means to defend yourself in the event of real internal trouble, and, most importantly:
4. Keep talking to each other, whether here or elsewhere

It's been a long strange trip without you Skipper, but thanks for pointing us in the right direction and giving us a swift kick in the behind to get us going. Keep lookin' down on us, will ya? Thanks.

THE INFORMATION AND OTHER CONTENTS OF THIS WEBSITE ARE DESIGNED TO COMPLY WITH THE LAWS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. THIS WEBSITE SHALL BE GOVERNED BY AND CONSTRUED IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE LAWS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA AND ALL PARTIES IRREVOCABLY SUBMIT TO THE JURISDICTION OF THE AMERICAN COURTS. IF ANYTHING ON THIS WEBSITE IS CONSTRUED AS BEING CONTRARY TO THE LAWS APPLICABLE IN ANY OTHER COUNTRY, THEN THIS WEBSITE IS NOT INTENDED TO BE ACCESSED BY PERSONS FROM THAT COUNTRY AND ANY PERSONS WHO ARE SUBJECT TO SUCH LAWS SHALL NOT BE ENTITLED TO USE OUR SERVICES UNLESS THEY CAN SATISFY US THAT SUCH USE WOULD BE LAWFUL.

Copyright © 2004-2015 Domain Owner