Last Chance To View Insects

LAST CHANCE TO VIEW INSECTS
 October 25 & October 27

We were toasty warm in our living room despite the outside temperature being minus three degrees, according to the weather report I had just downloaded onto the computer. A “killing frost,” they called it, as they expressed condolences to gardeners who had not yet harvested the remainder of their tomatoes.

But outside there was life. As the sun peeked through the canopy of leaves in the silver maples, there was movement, albeit tiny, on the narrow leaf of a single branch that reached toward the sundeck. A closer look through the binoculars revealed a ladybug, gradually warming up in the ray of sunshine that shone through the trees. It had likely remained dormant all night beneath a fallen leaf and sprang back to life once the warm rays of sun had begun to filter through the canopy.

How insects handle cooler weather is still not fully understood. Development is slowed and all but the essential metabolic processes cease. For some dormancy comes as a result of cooler temperatures, and for others it occurs at a fixed time, regardless of temperature. Some during winter months, like the mosquito, may overwinter in the egg stage, others like the dragonfly in the nymph stage under water. Others like the springtails or snow fleas as they are often called, remain quite active as any winter hiker knows. The woollybear caterpillar simply curls up in a protected place away from the colder temperatures. We find plenty of these on warm days, even in mid-winter.

How many remember the early days of science in public school and learning about a certain insect that kept its own “herd of cows” and milked them daily? Of course, they were referring to “ant cows” or aphids. We already know about the ladybug’s fondness for aphids, but they also like the byproduct from aphids, known as “honeydew.” Ants are notorious for their fondness for this honeydew and actually stroke the aphids to retrieve it. Early public schools were always so careful about protecting us from the real world which can be rather gross at times. What the teachers failed to tell us is that this sweet, syrupy liquid which created visions of the honeydew drink we used to get every summer as kids at the CNE was, in fact, nothing more than euphemistic term for aphid excrement ! Bon appetite!

Ladybugs are what we like to refer to as “good bugs,” as opposed to those which consume our radishes, lettuce and cabbage. Amazingly, I found another that same morning buzzing around the sun warmed patio doors. This was a wasp, its long legs dangling as it hovered around and searched for something on which to land to soak up the warm sunlight.

Although a beneficial insect, we always show fear whenever we are around these insects for they do have powerful stingers. But they usually won’t sting unless provoked to do so. We once had a teacher who would routinely remove wasps from the classroom by carrying them outside on her finger, something even as a seasoned naturalist I would never do! And I continue to be wary of them ever since the day as a small child I had one land on my bare behind and sting me with no provocation whatsoever as I was changing out of my bathing suit in the garage where the wasps always nested up on the rafters.

Wasps this year consumed more nectar from my hummingbird feeder than the hummingbirds. But I left them alone as they too consume harmful insects. Mud daubers, which fortunately never saw my bare bottom as a target, also nested in the rafters of the garage. Their sting is hideously painful, but the insect itself is extremely beneficial. The mud dauber wasp plasters her mud nest against an object – in our case, it was always the rafters of the garage – and places a stung larva of some insect in one of the chambers, then lays an egg beside it. The stung larva is not dead, but rather, comatose, so it remains well preserved when the wasp larva hatches and proceeds to feast on the donation. In fact, all of the tiny parasitoid wasps including braconids, chalcids and tiphias do us a tremendous service by consuming tent caterpillars, tomato hornworms, asparagus beetles and cutworms. So, when planning your garden next year, welcome the wasps, and forget those ridiculous wasp traps that garden centres love to sell. Wasps offer their services for free.

As the weather turns cooler, we will see fewer insects. Some will appear sporadically though through the winter such as springtails and stoneflies. But that’s another story.