Extension Master GardenerSM Volunteers of Buncombe County

insects

Kids Post: Good bugs!

Do you like bugs? Getting to know bugs can be a fun—and important—part of enjoying gardening. There are almost 1,000 different types of bugs that live in North Carolina—most of them won’t damage our gardens, and some actually help us!

What ARE bugs?
• Scientists call them “arthropods.”

From “Good Bugs and Bad Bugs”

• Most are insects with 6 legs and 3 main body parts: a head, a thorax, and an abdomen.

From “University of Kentucky, Spider Anatomy”

• Spiders and daddylonglegs are not insects—they are part of a special group of arthropods called “arachnids.” They have 8 legs and 2 main body parts: a cephalothorax and an abdomen.

Daddylonglegs are arachnids that prey on insects, but don’t spin webs like spiders.

What makes good bugs good?

• They live off of bad bugs!

Wheel bug preying on a bee. Sometimes good bugs eat any bug they can find.

o Some prey on insects: lady beetles (you may call them lady bugs), wheel bugs, soldier bugs, and spiders may eat other insects—young and adult—as well as their eggs.

Braconid wasp eggs laid on tomato hornworm.

o Some parasitize insects: braconid wasps, for example, lay their eggs on tomato hornworms so the new hatchlings will have a meal waiting for them!

Black Swallowtail_John Flannery_CC BY-ND 2.0_Flickr
Black swallowtail pollinating a zinnia flower.

• They pollinate plants: bees, butterflies, and moths that feed on pollen and/or nectar move pollen from flower to flower, helping pollinate plants.
Where to look for bugs:
• You can find bugs on many garden plants. IMPORTANT: look, but don’t touch! Many bugs can bite (such as wheel bugs) or sting—even touching the “hair” on some caterpillars can hurt! Also, you may injure or kill a helpful bug if you try to catch it!

• Look for insect eggs, young (larvae), and adults:

o On branches

Lady beetle laying eggs on branch.

o On flowers


o On the leaves—look underneath the leaves, too!

Wheel bug larva.
Green lynx spider feeding on wasp.

o In the soil
Identifying bugs:
• One place to start is to have an adult help you look on the internet: For example,https://www.insectidentification.org/bugfinder-start.asp is a page that shows the shape of each type of bug and then helps you decide if the bug you’ve seen is that type of insect or arachnid.
• Identify our native bees here: https://content.ces.ncsu.edu/the-bees-of-north-carolina-identification-guide
Protecting good bugs:
If you want good bugs that help control bad bugs in your garden, you need to let them be and be careful about using pesticides!
Make sure that your plants are healthy—plant them in the right amount of sunlight and give them the right amount of water and fertilizer—and that you have some native plants in your garden; healthy plants make good homes for good bugs.

Learning more:
“Lady bugs” for kids: https://www.clemson.edu/public/scbg/education/ladybug1.pdf

Beneficial insects:https://growingsmallfarms.ces.ncsu.edu/growingsmallfarms-beneficials/

North Carolina insects:https://www.insectidentification.org/insects-by-state.asp?thisState=North%20Carolina

Insect identification:https://bugguide.net/node/view/15740

Bug facts site:https://www.bugfacts.net/

Has a printable bug checklist:https://www.bugfacts.net/images/checklist-z.pdf

Where to find bugs:http://www.bugpeople.org/pubs/pdf/10SurePlaces.pdf

EMG Blog: https://www.buncombemastergardener.org/beneficial-insects-attracting-good-voracious-ugly-garden/

Good Bugs and Bad Bugs: Student Booklet: http://entomology.tamu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Good_Bugs.pdf

Spider Anatomy: https://www.uky.edu/Ag/CritterFiles/casefile/spiders/anatomy/spideranatomy.htm#palps

Pest Alert: Nantucket Pine Tip Moth

If you’re spending more time outside as the weather warms, you might notice problems in your landscape. One homeowner called the Garden Helpline about white webbing on the ends of some of the branches of a tree purchased as a live Christmas tree. She planted the tree in a special place in her yard as a reminder of that happy occasion. Although she knew it was a pine, diagnosing the problem required determining what pine species it was. The number of needles in each needle bundle can identify pine species. She reported that there were 3 needles in each bundle, helping identify the tree as a Scotch pine (Pinus sylvestris), a very popular Christmas tree species.

Scotch PIne three needle bundle
Three needle bundle pine

Damage: The description of the webbing she saw helped determine that her tree was infested with the Nantucket pine tip moth, (Rhyacionia frustrana). Other signs include:

• Deformed growth (stem crooking) or a reduction in growth (bushy or stunted growth);
• Fecal deposits may be present in the webbing on the outside of infested shoots;
• Trees can be killed when exposed to repeated Nantucket pine tip moth larval infestations.

Damage caused by Nantucket Pine Tip Moth

Identification:

• In North Carolina, this pest overwinters as pupae in hollowed out pine shoots;
• On warm days as early as January and February, new moths emerge to mate;
• Adult moths are 1/4 inches (6.3 mm) long with the head and body covered with gray scales. The forewings are covered with brick-red to copper-colored patches that are separated by irregular bands of gray and white scales;
• Adult females lay white to opaque eggs on shoots, needles, or terminal growth in spring;

Adult Nantucket Pine Tip Moth

• From 5 to 30 days later, young larvae (caterpillars) hatch from eggs and feed on the surface of new growth. These are 1/16 inches (1.6 mm) long, and cream-colored with a black head. They then move to the shoot tips, construct protective webs at the base of buds, and begin to bore into the bud or stem.
• Feeding continues inside the bud or stem until the caterpillars are fully grown in 3 to 4 weeks. The caterpillars then pupate inside the damaged stem.

Management:

• Proper watering, fertilization, and mulching practices to keep pine trees healthy;
• For minor infestations, you can hand prune infested shoots if branches are reachable.

Susceptible pine species:

• Other three needle bundle pines, which include pitch pine (P. rigida) and loblolly pine (P. taeda).
• Two needle bundle pines are highly susceptible to infestation. These include Japanese red pine (P. densifolia), mountain pine (P. mugo) and Japanese black ine (P. thunbergii).

Resistant pine species:

  • Eastern white pine (P. strobus) and Virginia pine (P. virginiana), which have five needle bundles.

                                        Article by Bob Wardwell, Extension Master Gardener Volunteer

For more Information:
Nantucket Pine Tip Moth: https://content.ces.ncsu.edu/nantucket-pine-tip-mo

How to Identify Pines: https://smallfarms.cornell.edu/2019/02/arent-they-all-just-pines-how-to-id-conifer-trees/

Pest Facts: Hemlock Woolly Adelgid (HWA)

Just visit a Western North Carolina forest to see how much destruction this non-native invasive insect pest has caused—and is still causing—on the native Carolina hemlocks (Tsuga caroliniana) and Eastern hemlocks (Tsuga canadensis)! After our recent rains, this is a good time to treat your hemlocks if you see a white cottony substance on your hemlocks.

Hemlock Woolly Adelgid

History

  • HWAs were discovered in Shenandoah National Park in northern Virginia in 1988, likely when crawlers clung to the legs and feathers of migrating birds, such as the black-throated green warbler and solitary vireo that visit or nest in hemlock trees.
  • HWAs were discovered on hemlocks in North and South Carolina in late 2001 and early 2002.

HWA (Adelges tsugae) Life Cycle:

  • HWAs hatch from eggs and then go through a crawler stage—almost invisible to the naked eye. These crawlers cannot fly on their own but can drift in the air from tree to tree, and cling to the legs and feathers of migrating birds.
  • After settling on host trees, the HWAs insert a bundle of mouthparts at the base of a needle and spend the rest of their lives—a few months—sucking nutrients out of the tree.
  • The name “woolly” comes from the fact that adult HWAs are covered with a protective white fluff once they settle.
  • The HWA goes through two generations a year (one in March and one in October in Western North Carolina) and each female—even without being fertilized by a male—can lay between 100 to 300 eggs.
  • This reproductive process is called “parthenogenesis”—the offspring are genetically identical clones of their mother.

Controls

Chemical: Registered pesticides containing imidacloprid or dinotefuran are the most effective chemical treatments for control of HWAs. These are applied as a soil injection or trunk spray. These insecticides are water soluble and move into the tree’s vascular system along with water. Dinotefuran has a faster uptake, but imidacloprid has a longer residual protection. Control of HWAs using imidacloprid can last for 4-5 years. Dinotefuran may require retreatment within 2 years.

Biological:

The species that has so far shown the most promise as a biological control agent is Laricobius nigrinus, a predator beetle native to the Pacific Northwest. L. nigrinus is active from October to March; both adults and larvae will consume all stages of HWAs: eggs, nymphs and adults.

After exhaustive evaluation in quarantine labs, it was cleared by the USDA for use as an HWA biocontrol in the eastern United States in 2000 and has been released in NC since 2003.

Original Article by Glenn Palmer, Extension Master GardenerSM Volunteer, Revised by Bob Wardwell, Extension Master GardenerSM Volunteer

Hemlock Restoration Initiative https://savehemlocksnc.org/

National Park Service Great Smoky Mountains Hemlock Woolly Adelgid

https://www.nps.gov/grsm/learn/nature/hemlock-woolly-adelgid.htm

University of Massachusetts HWA Fact Sheet https://ag.umass.edu/landscape/fact-sheets/hemlock-woolly-adelgid

Contact Us

Buncombe County Extension Office
49 Mount Carmel Road
Asheville, NC 28806
Helpline 828-255-5522

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