Let's Rodeo San Antonio - Bug Style!

Every February is Rodeo month in San Antonio and Texas AgriLife Extension has been blessed with receiving half of an entire building to use for an educational display. We do this in coordination with the Bexar County Master Gardeners.

This year, we have an extra special exhibit with live insects and arthropods. There is a butterfly garden, display with just ladybugs, and aquariums holding tarantulas, scorpions, vinagaroons, preying mantids, termites, rhino beetle grubs, and hissing cockroaches!

If you time it right, you just might get to see a tarantula come out from her home to eat a cricket!

In addition to the awesome insect displays, you will find displays about tilapia farming (with live tilapia), vertical farming, sustainable agriculture, hardscape and xeriscape ideas, and propagation. Master Gardeners will be on hand to answer all your gardening related questions.

For the kids, we will also have germ, hand washing station. Kids of all ages, will get the chance to see their germs glowing on a screen, using special lotion. You can wash your hands and re-check to see how well you do in fighting germs!

Extension has also built a mock-kitchen with other safety ideas and tips to keeping your family healthy. The ISEC (Identify, Sanitize, Exclude & Control) Home Pest Management Program is highlighted, giving additional tips on how to prevent and manage bugs in the kitchen.

If you are out at the Rodeo this year, come by the Texas Experience Pavilion. There will be food, fun, and all sorts of information to take home! We spent over three weeks putting the barn together, and we're proud of how it looks, so come enjoy it with us!

Hmmm... Club Soda the New Fire Ant Killer???

Every so often, an email starts circulating claiming that club soda is the new, awesome thing in killing fire ants. "And it really works!" You've probably received it lately, if you subscribe to any gardening type email blasts, or have friends that do.

The most recent email is claiming to be touted by Walter Reeves on his Georgia Gardener radio program. It claims to use two cups of club soda, poured on the center of the fire ant mound. Since carbon dioxide is heavier than air, it will push all the oxygen out of the mound and suffocate the colony. The whole colony is supposed to die within a couple days.

Now, there's no environmental hazard to trying this, that I am aware of. It should not contaminate ground water, and doesn't harm beneficial insects, wildlife, humans, pets, etc. The bad thing is, it won't really harm your fire ants either!

In 2009, my colleague, Wizzie Brown (who also has a bugblog urban-ipm.blogspot.com), tested the club soda theory in field trials. The emails that have circulated don't site any scientific testing to back them up, so she decided to give it a shot. That way, when we are asked about it, we have a true answer, not just a hunch.

After replicated experiments, it didn't work. There were no ants climbing to the surface, gasping for breath, and no evidence that there was any control at all.

One thing you may find, is that the mound moves over a few feet because they are irritated. And for some, if that means moving into the neighbor's yard, that's control! I am definitely not one to argue with success, so if you've tried club soda and swear by it, keep it up! As researchers, we just can't recommend, endorse, or encourage management practices that we find in replicated field trials not be effective (it would be like claiming a diet pill will make you loose 20 pounds without ever testing its efficacy or safety).

In addition, Walter Reeves has since stated that he has not endorsed club soda as a sound treatment to fire ants.

If you are interested in learning more about our results with various home remedies (molasses, garlic, aspartame, and others), check out http://fireant.tamu.edu and peruse our IPM handbooks. All the field work we do is written up in those yearly handbooks. There is also information about successful and low impact options for fire ant management.

Freak Ladybug Emergence this Weekend

You know, being an entomologist, I usually don't notice or maybe pay too much attention to the insects in my own backyard. I feel like the public gets more of the strange insect explosions and incidences than I do. But this weekend - it actually happened to me! We had a huge explosion of ladybugs congregating all over our garage.

There were literally hundreds of ladybugs congregating on the side of our home that faces the morning sun! When I got to work this morning, low and behold, many of you had experienced the same thing.

Here's what probably happened. During winter ladybugs will nest under the eaves of houses, little cracks and crevices, and other nice, tight, hiding places. When we had a day of warm, sunny weather, those ladybugs probably emerged from those hiding places to take advantage of the warm weather. They were congregating in the sunlight because it's warmer. You may have also noticed that they congregated fairly close together - this is because insect communicate by using chemicals called pheromones, which they 'smell'. They attract one another to the same area using an aggregation pheromone (also explains why you may randomly see many, many insects clumped together in one location - someone found a great spot, and they are sharing the news).

The wet and dark weather was back today and we are expected to have another week of cold weather, so don't expect to see those ladybugs come out again until we have another warm and sunny day. Next time we do - check out the sunlit side of your home and see if the ladybugs used your house to hide through the winter!

Snout Nosed Butterflies and Armyworms - are they the same?

(Top left - Snout nosed butterfly; Top right - Noctuid moth (armyworm moth); Bottom - fall armyworm) (All photos by Bart Drees, http://insects.tamu.edu/fieldguide)

Call it coincidence, but the snout nosed butterflies and army worms are not the same animal. Snout nosed butterflies emerged a month or so ago with avengence and have been seen around town since. They seem to prefer native grasses to find pollen, but are considered benign insects. Army worms just so happened to explode around the same time. Many people have confused the two for the same species, but they are very different.

Army worms become a small, brown moth. About the size of a penny. Snout nosed butterflies are butterflies, have more coloration and are not the agricultural pest that army worms are known to be.

You have have noticed army worms stripping down fields, all the way to the soil in some situations. Whether or not to treat is situation depended. How much will it cost you? Will the crop grow back in time for your purposes? How bad was the damage? Etc, etc.

There is no need to worry about snout nosed butterflies. If they emerge again in the spring or next fall, it does not mean that an army worm infestation will happen again.

In addition, army worms are known to be turf pests, but if you haven't seen them on your lawn yet - don't treat. The army worms that the media has been talking about and we have been getting calls on at the Extension office are agricultural pests.

The Attack of the Termites!

Yes, those flying insects, dropping wings and landing all over your porch are probably termites. But, don't worry, chances are they are agricultural termites. San Antonio has had this happen before - after a wonderful, long, hard rain, following an extensive drought, agricultural termites take advantage of the humidity and swarm. These swarms are mating flights. They fly up in the air, mate, land back on the ground, and drop their wings. The females go off to find a place to lay their eggs, and the males usually die.

Sometimes the termites are attracted to porch lights left on a night. This is probably where you are finding them congregating.

If you are finding termites swarming right now, 99 times of 100 they are agricultural termites. But, if you are concerned, send them into the Bexar County Extension Office for me to identify them.

If you contact a pest control company and they tell you they are structural damaging termites without ever pulling out a microscope or really good hand lens - send them away! It takes more than just a good eye to know if they are friend or foe. Professionals use a microscope, check out the wing venation and little tiny structures on the top of the termites head. None of which can be seen well with the naked eye - no matter how well those eyes work!

Since these termites do not damage structures, I would not treat for them. You don't know where they are exactly and its a waste of time and money and pesticide to spray the yard haphazardly.

Mud Tubes All Over My Lawn

Every summer, and especially in drier years, we start to see little tubes or mud tunnels all over our lawn or pastures. If you break them open you may find small darkish insects, similar to ants or teeny tiny beetles. These are actually termites. Agricultural or Desert Termites. And probably the best termites you could ever want to have! These termites do not feed on wood and are not considered structural pests like what comes to mind when we think of termites.



Agricultural Termites are mainly agricultural pests. They feed on forbes, roots, and other types of grasses. They usually only go after dead grasses, but it may seem like they are killing your lawn. Chances are, they are going after the dead grass blades, but taking out anything they can eat.

In an urban or semi-urban area, there is little you can do to control them. Rake over their tubes daily, spray them with water, basically irritate them until they leave your yard. If you spray them, remember that you are only killing the ones you touch and you'll be wasting a lot of time, money, and pesticide. Not to mention, exposing the environment to unnecessary pesticides.

When we get a little more rain (over a long period of time), expect to see them disappear. As the roots travel back deeper in the soil, so will the termites.

You notice that only unhealthy lawns seem to have them. This is because that grass has strong, deep roots, and the termites get all they need below ground. As the roots shrink to look for moisture, termites travel up with them - ending up on top of the lawn.

As with all insects, patience is a virtue.

Bees vs. Hummingbirds ... Who Will Win?

Every summer, hummingbird lovers call me up asking what they can do to keep bees out of their hummingbird feeders. Truthfully, if you want to keep the feeders up, there very little you can do.

Bees love sweet stuff, so do hummingbirds, so when you feed hummingbirds you also feed bees. But, don't worry, these foraging bees aren't going to attach a hummingbird, and if you watch long enough you will notice that they almost take turns at the feeder during different times of day.

The bees are thirsty and hungry, and with our extended drought, their nectar and water sources are drying up and dying! Consider yourselves good stewards of the environment because you are helping our most important pollinators eat.

If you are concerned, simply remove the hummingbird feeder for a week or so and see if the bees find another spot to feed. I know you won't have hummingbirds for that week, but are you seeing them much when the bees are taking over? Didn't think so.
You can also try diluting the water somewhat. Yes, its not as appetizing to the hummingbirds either, but you don't have many options.

Finally, the best option is just to wait it out. After a couple weeks, those bees will probably move off to another location. A nearby colony has just found a great food source, and they are taking advantage of it.

So, who wins, bees or hummingbirds? Both - the hummingbirds will come back, the bees will not sting them to death, and the bees will eventually find another good spot to eat. Just bear with them for a while. They are suffering in this drought and heat just like everyone else.