Indiana Department of Natural Resources sent this bulletin at 08/30/2017 09:10 AM EDT
Weekly Review for Aug. 30, 2017
Indiana Department of Natural Resources Division of Entomology & Plant Pathology Phone: (317) 232-4120 Our Website Inspector Territories
This informal report by the Division of Entomology and Plant Pathology is designed to update the Nursery and Greenhouse industry of insect and disease pests the Division has been encountering on a week to week basis and as a way to give a “heads up” of things to be on the lookout for.
Links can be found at the bottom of the page to manage your subscription to this list. Comments and questions about this report are welcome and can be sent to Eric Biddinger or to your respective
Inspector.
Ken Cote (Nursery Inspector & Compliance Officer) - KCote@dnr.IN.gov
I have not been conducting nursery inspections during the last several weeks because I have been working on kudzu eradication. However, I am seeing increased drought stress in my region. We had 0.40 inches of rain last week, but that did not do much to reduce plant stress. Many street trees, including red maple, ginkgo, bald cypress, linden and sweet gum are developing leaf scorch. Interesting I have also seen bagworm feeding which led to complete defoliation on upright oaks, honey locust and pin oak in the Bloomington area. Spider mites were also observed on oaks this week.
Last week during the eclipse I was in Knox County where we had 97% totality. I have included a picture of the crescent shaped shadows that occurred under the trees where we were working.
I have been busy with inspections and State Fair the last few weeks. It was fun to add more butterflies to the netted butterfly garden area at the State Fair. I also like to check on what is visiting the flowers in the garden area. Lots of bumble bees and honey bees, but just a few butterflies. The foot traffic scares most of the butterflies away.
Aug. 22 we captured the adults and released them. I collected monarch larvae off the milkweed plants we had in the netted area. I put some of the larvae on milkweed outside the netted area and a few on my plants at home. Some larva went to the Indianapolis Southeastway Park for their Bugfest event on Aug. 27 and for release in the park.
Apiary inspections still ongoing. At one inspection, their only hive was queenless and had laying workers in the hive. They need a queen soon. I told her to purchase a queen cell and put it the hive to hatch out. If they had another hive, they could have taken a frame with eggs on it and put it in the hive to let them make queens out of the eggs. The last option is to take the hive 10 feet out, take each frame out and shake the bees onto the ground. You would reassemble the hive with no bees on the frames where the hive was located. The bees that can will fly back to where the hive was. The laying workers will not be able to fly back.
I’m starting to see more Varroa mites in hives. If I see Varroa mites on bees I tell beekeepers to start treating. Beekeepers have several treatments to choose from. Some are fast treatment while other have to be in there for 6 weeks. Whatever they use, they need to get it in the hives now. I will have to see about treating my hives also.
Beekeepers should be working on getting honey supers off. I like to get them off early enough to start mite treatments. For commercial beekeepers, it will take longer for them to get all the honey off. Other beekeepers may want to keep honey supers on to get some fall honey. If you wait too long to treat, the hives may get too weak to make it through the winter. I got the last of the honey off my hives 2 weeks ago. I just have to bottle the honey and get started on my mite treatments.
I've been seeing a lot of bagworm in my area over the past couple weeks with healthy mature larva inside the bags. I've included a photo of bagworm on arborvitae and also a photo of the caterpillar that hides inside, incase people haven't seen the actual insect. I've also been seeing what I would call a heavy year for Fall Webworm in my area. Seeing lots of it over my entire area and Orange County in particular.
