News & Updates:

The leaf-cutter bee (Megachile centuncularis), is a large insect something like a honey-bee. It cuts regular semi-circular portions from the margins of rose leaves, carries them away, makes a tubular nest in crevices of wood, brick walls, or soil, lays an egg in it, and then exactly fits a cap to the tube. When possible, the nests should be traced and destroyed at dusk, when the bees are at home. Spraying foliage with arsenate of lead is helpful. The leaf-cutter bee is not a serious menace.

caterpillars (Plate 47)

Caterpillars are considered best as a group; all are voracious feeders. The most common are:

1. The various looper caterpillars of the Geometrida family. Many live on other plants as well as on roses. They are nearly all stick-like in both form and colour, making them difficult to detect. Most feed by night, but during the day take a firm hold on a twig with their two pairs of prolegs, and project at an acute angle. When travelling they raise their mid-part into a loop.

2. The painted apple moth {Teira amtrtoides)-Plate 47-has a caterpillar a little over an inch long. It has one loose tuft of long hair at the tail and two near the head; the whole body is covered with tufts of shorter hair. On emerging from the egg the caterpillar is almost black, but changes to greyish-brown as it matures. The expanded wings are brown and yellow with grey markings; the hind-wings have a large basal patch of orange. Except for two useless vestigial appendages the female is wingless. Soon after reaching maturity she lays five hundred to a thousand eggs on the empty cocoon from which she has recently emerged. This is sometimes called the tussock moth.

3. The light-brown apple moth (Tortix [Cacaecia] post vittana)-Plate 47-has a greenish caterpillar that curls up in the leaves and buds of roses. About an inch in length, it is very active, and so elusive that when leaves are seen rolled or gummed together it is advisable to squeeze them between finger and thumb before looking for the culprit. The moth has a wing-span of three-quarters of an inch. It is yellowish-brown with lightly barred wings, and very evasive. The eggs are laid on the young flower-buds, which the caterpillars penetrate immediately they are hatched. They move from one bud to another, destroying each in turn, until they reach maturity in about two weeks. Then they join a couple of leaves together, or curl one leaf over on itself, spin a web, and turn into a chrysalis.

4. The stick-case moths (Entometit, ThyruUypteryx, etc.) cause relatively little harm.

5. Cutworms {Agrotis heliothus, etc.) rise from debris and the soil by night, and one caterpillar can do widespread damage, most commonly in September and January. Eggs are deposited at night. They hatch in eight to ten days and produce mature moths in seven to eight weeks. Each moth lays two hundred to five hundred eggs.

All these caterpillars can be controlled by spraying with arsenate of lead, but it must be applied at or very soon after hatching time, which in most cases will be early spring. A preparation of Lindane (the gamma isomer of BHC), or DDT in white-oil emulsion is at least equally as effective, and is not poisonous to birds. Baits of bran with arsenate of calcium give better results in killing cutworms. Be careful to lay the baits in the evening and to gather them early next morning before birds can get them and be poisoned.