Raising boys is so much more fun than raising girls...if you're not squeamish. I had snakes, lizards, toads, crawdads, fish, rats, hamsters....+ the normal dogs and cats.

You need to meet my grand daughters, Carol. They love all manner of creepy crawlies already, and they're only 3 and 2. I think I may have been a bad influence .. .

You have to see this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

At least they can't run when they see you coming with the sprayer.

Nasty, aren't they?

Jim

Super nasty. I didn't watch to the end, did he ever say what kind of scale that was? It seemed kind of slimy, we get a lot of quesions about Oyster Shell scale lately. They look like tiny oysters.

They sure are disgusting.
Reminds me of one of my early Orchid purchases. Green as I was, I asked what that white stuff was covering the pseudobulb on that Zygopetalum I was about to buy.
The answer was: Oh, we just treated the plants and this is some residue. As the gentlemen wiped some of it off.
Ok. I liked the plant and bought it. Except I noticed that in weeks to come some other Orchids now also showed that "residue from treatments". Hmmm. So I took some and placed it under the microscope. That "treatment residue" clearly had pincers and legs!! I was no longer a happy customer of that place and learned how to try to eradicate Boisduval scale. Lovely!!!!!

I get the oyster shell scale and mealies on my citrus trees and the boisduval on my orchids. Amazingly, I haven't had any mealies on any of my orchids for years. Not even the ones hanging from the citrus.

I've never had mealies on my orchids. I have had my share of boisduval scale however.

Jim

I used to get mealy bugs on the indoor orchids. How they got there, I don't know, but I have three indoors now, and no problems.

Thanks, Ted for that link...Ewww. Now I know exactly what to look for!

Same here Carol. Maybe the drought? And the scale likes my Zamia more than the orchids. And they are in the same area

Which Zamia, Ted? Coontie?

Jim

This one is furfuracea, Jim. BTW hope your feeling better.

You may be right, Ted. There are lots of bugs that are scarce around here these days. Most of them I don't miss at all. The bees I do miss, and most of the Xeric plants do get scale, and/or mealy bugs.

Yes, not even spelling with a slur, Jim. Way to handle the painkillers!

I just have every scale and other little sucker there is.. . mealies on my Phals, boisduval on the others, mites on my brugs (but not as many as before). After watching Ted's video, I rushed out with my magnifying glass to check on my plumerias and found seven species of bugs I'd never seen before . . . What can I say, sprayed them with Capt'n Jack's and came in again.

7 species???