Box Elder -- no, MILKWEED -- Bugs attacking my bell peppers

[applestar]

[img]https://i290.photobucket.com/albums/ll272/applesbucket/4cffd2b3f6818b7520c931b1cc2fce96.jpg[/img]

[jal_ut]

Those things are awful. They came in and sucked all the juice out of my plums. There was so many bugs on them, you could not see the plums.

[Tonio]

I have the jadera bugs cousins to boxelder's, but do not appear to be destructive

https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/LyraEDISServlet?command=getImageDetail&image_soid=FIGURE 7&document_soid=IN287&document_version=46095

[rainbowgardener]

Your wonderfully diverse garden seems to draw a wonderfully diverse assortment of bugs. You keep coming up with ones I have (thankfully!) never seen. Those look nasty, in their multitudes. Are you doing anything about them? When bugs are congregating like that, it makes sucking them up with a vaccuum cleaner easier.

[gixxerific]

Your wonderfully diverse garden seems to draw a wonderfully diverse assortment of bugs. You keep coming up with ones I have (thankfully!) never seen. Those look nasty, in their multitudes. Are you doing anything about them? When bugs are congregating like that, it makes sucking them up with a vaccuum cleaner easier.

LOL I don't want to know them either RBG. Just wondering how Apple know all of these bugs.

[Tonio]

Presume you know how to deal with them buggers applestar?

Although Jadera are not destructive they are a PITA to deal with, I've managed to bring down the population. I think they can be a vector for diseases.

[PunkRotten]

I saw these bugs on 2 separate occasions. But I only saw a single bug at the time. One was on a Sunflower or Tomato, can't remember. And the other I think was on my Goji tree.

[!potatoes!]

the pattern of dark-on-orange/red on the back seems not-quite-right to be box elder bugs (specifically on the winged ones - the adults)...I suppose it could be regional variation, but they usually have much more dark on them, like this:
[img]https://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j248/khoomeizhi/for%20web/istock-1741651_box-elder-bug_s4x3_lg_zpse0981974.jpg[/img]

interesting. they sure seem behavior-ly similar, with clustering and whatnot.

[applestar]

Ah! Thanks, !potatoes! You know what? I've been thinking the same. I now believe these are Milkweed Bugs!!

I used to only see the spotted one's but these banded ones are more common on my milkweed now. And that explains -- they must have migrated over from the nearby milkweed.... But what are they doing on my peppers?

Clusters are easy to knock off into a container of soapy water, though they scatter quick if not done carefully. Individuals I can just dash to the ground and stomp on them.

[rainbowgardener]

Hmm... maybe I should have recognized them. My milkweed used to get them every year, but for some reason the last couple years they haven't shown up, so it's been awhile since I have seen them. I'm more familiar with seeing thousands of the bright orange juveniles. In my experience by the time they were adults there were a lot fewer of them and they didn't stay around too long.

When the milkweed gets covered with them, they never seem to do a whole lot of damage. Are they damaging your peppers?

[applestar]

I had to chase them down among the foliage and other fruits, but it looks like this was the only cluster incident.
They did suck on -- or at least pierce -- that yellow ripe pepper they had clustered on.

Normally, the milkweed bugs pierce the seed pod of milkweeds and suck on immature seeds, but I'm thinking that, unlike with the solidly filled milkweed pods, with the open cavity inside the pepper, it's not likely that they would have been able to reach the immature seeds with their proboscis....

So -- it's entirely possible that *I* actually caused this infestation. I don't do a whole lot about the milkweed bugs since they don't do much damage. This year, I decided not to collect milkweed silks or seeds (nor try to eat the young pods/silks). Instead, I was trying to see if I could prolong the blooming period by removing as many of the pods as I could. I selectively removed milkweed bug infested pods first, sometimes removing the bugs first, but no always.

So these may be displaced milkweed bugs that climbed up... not another milkweed but a repurposed picnic bench on which my window box of container peppers are sitting on.... ...and not finding anything else to eat, decided the yellow bell pepper was the closest equivalent to a milkweed pod

OR, a milkweed bug accidentally laid eggs on the pepper -- this patio corner is bordered on two sides by milkweed.

Did the adults lead them of did the juvies just cluster around anything they could find?

[Tonio]

[url=https://i58.photobucket.com/albums/g259/ttonio/MilkweedBug1_zps170e8a0e.jpg][img]https://i58.photobucket.com/albums/g259/ttonio/th_MilkweedBug1_zps170e8a0e.jpg[/img][/url]

Guess they like to congregate.

https://www.fbmg.com/Insects/LargeMilkweedBug.htm