A Motley Monday Full of Insects - May 27, 2024

Holiday Mondays always throw me into thinking they're Sundays!  The neighborhood's so quiet.  Mickey and I went to the park around 8:00am.  Being a holiday, the playground gates were unlocked (they are the school's playground, so are locked on school days), which made the "It's Sunday" illusion more believable! 

The other day was quite windy and I found this paper wasp nest blown down.  I'm glad it was empty.  If you look online for "paper wasp" you will find mostly links on how to get rid of them.  I don't.  If I see a nest being built where I don't want it, I'll knock it down.  That's rare.  I do remove mud dauber nests under construction from the house.  Paper wasps are pollinators (if inadvertently while searching out nectar), and eat other insects, including aphids.  The same for mud daubers.  

Sometimes they are referred to as "umbrella wasps," as the nests are like umbrellas upside down.  I don't really see that.  There are little attachments (below), but not much like an umbrella handle. 

One insect everyone agrees is a good one is the ladybug.  This is a ladybug larvae.  It doesn't look much like a ladybug, which is why too many people kill them.  There are many red and black beetles and true bugs, so it's good to check them out before rushing to call them pests.   This one was just where I want it, in the peas. 

Meadow Spittlebug (Philaenus spumarius)

Spittlebugs are the nymph stage of the tree bug, the froghopper. You don't usually see an adult spittlebug.  They have five nymph stages; this one is pretty far along.   Spittlebugs are harmless, do little damage to plants in most cases, however I don't like the looks of the masses of spittle, so remove them.  

This is a younger nymph in 2020.  Even younger and they look like aliens. 

This is an ornate checkered beetle. 

Their lifecycle takes one year, beginning with a single egg laid near the center of a flower, flowers visited by solitary bees.  The egg hatches, the larvae attaches to the leg of a solitary bee to be flown back to the bee's nest, where it's deposited into a cell the bee will lay an egg in, add food, and seal.  The beetle larvae begins its feeding on the stored bee food, then moves onto eating the bee larvae.  If that's not enough, it moves on to nearby cells.  It will emerge in spring as an adult.  Then the life cycle begins again with a single egg laid near the center of a flower. 

They do like yarrow.  They eat pollen, and the foolish bee that ventures too close.  Luckily for this bee (possibly a sweat bee), these two ornate checkered beetles were busy ensuring their lifecycle continued!

If you want a yellow flower, truly yellow, no golden tones, Moonshine yarrow is the one!  It's also well behaved.  

That's it for now.  Come back tomorrow for Tuesday Treasures, which is the antique oil painting I cleaned with olive oil soap.