Thank you Dawn. Well said as always and with many options stated. ...... I haven't decided what to do quite yet. In my advancing years the Life Is Too Short adage is more relevant. Problem plants have a way of disappearing now more so then in my youth, so cutting back the short crape myrtles is actually kinder then my first thought which was elimination......I have a large tree that has had scale for ages. It drips honeydew in the early spring that creates sooty mold, but not on anything that is particularly important to us,. The tree has much more merit then problems, so it remains. We tried all the known remedies, from insecticidal soil soaks, to yearly commercial dormant oil spraying (the timing of which is critical. Unfortunately the weather has to be just right when it's time to spray and in Oklahoma the two times seldom coincide). I have had Euonymous Scale too, and the plants seemed to grow alright despite it, so between the tree and the everygreen Euonymous experience, I might just take a wait and see attitude for awhile. I do know that the ants have to go. The ants can take a mild to moderate infestation with aphids, mealybugs, scale etc. and exacerbate it to life threatening levels...........I know you do quite a bit of research, so I'm attaching a rather lengthy article on the Neonicotinoids controversy. It is not settled science that it can lead to colony collapse other then with a certain set of people. ........Thank you again for your advice and information........Maryl

Bee Colony Collapse/

Maryl, I agree that the science is unsettled on the causes of CCD, and everytime a group of researchers think they have it all figured out, then we find out that they don't. But, neonicotinoids are such broad-spectrum killers I don't want to use them anyway since I strive to have a garden full of beneficial insects. I used to purchase several flats of bedding plants in spring to have early flowers for the bees, and then I learned that most commercially sold bedding plants (unless labeled as organic) are treated with neonics in the grower's greenhouses, so I stopped buying almost all bedding plants now and raise my own, which takes more time and space and in order to have early blooms, I have to start them even before I start veggie seeds. There is a major movement afoot for commercial growers to stop using neonicotinoids on bedding flowers because of the harm those plants will do to butterflies, bees and other beneficial insects. I'm looking forward to the day when the big chains stop selling bedding plants treated with strong systemic insecticides (if that day ever truly arrives) because to me one of the great joys of February or March is seeing those flats of bedding plants arriving in stores and picking up a couple of flats and taking them home and planting them. It always is fun to go from a winter garden with little happening in it to a flower-filled one, but it is a lot easier to do that if I can just pick up a couple of flats of bedding plants!

In my heart I feel like CCD among commercial bee keepers is somewhat related to the way that the huge commercial beekeepers truck their millions and millions of bees all over the country, leasing the hives for a few weeks here and there to commercial growers who need them at pollination time. When the bees are 'farmed' that way, they often are fed artificial food made with high fructose corn syrup, and I can't help thinking that this is not good for them. I also think the constant travel from one location to another on tractor-trailer trucks is so unnatural that it cannot be good for them. On our property where bees are left alone and allowed to be wild and free, and where we almost never use chemical pesticides at all, we've never had a shortage of bees. I've had neighbors stop by our place and look at the bees everywhere and complain bitterly that there's no bees at their places pollinating their fruits and veggies. It is almost like they blame me for taking their bees away from them. Well, they spray pesticides, so the bees choose not to visit their plants. That is not hard for me to understand! I do gently tell them that they cannot spray broad-spectrum pesticides constantly and expect to have bees visit. Bees are smarter than that.

It does sound like Dr. Lu considers himself sort of the modern-day equivalent of Rachel Carson, which is not an opinion likely shared by many other people. I do think he could be right about Big Ag, though, as we have seen time and again over the years that when Big Ag funds the research, it always seems to be in their favor. I tend to believe what I see with my own eyes nowadays more than anything promoted by the media, because the media (and the Big Ag-funded researchers) often get it wrong. You can believe what you observe for your own self in your own little ecosystem, so that is what I do. I am even skeptical about most organic products. For a long time (decades), lots of people used rotenone and sabadilla, but I wouldn't use either, and now rotenone is associated with Parkinson's Disease, which is just so sad. It is frustrating for organic gardeners to find out after the fact that something they thought was safe turns out to not be so safe after all. That's why my favorite methods of pest control are to hand pick and drown pests in soapy water or to snip them in half with my scissors. As long as I don't drown myself in that bowl of soapy water or cut myself with the scissors, there shouldn't be be any big risk to my health from using those pest control methods.

The older I get, the less patience I have with anything that is prone to regular rounds of pest infestation or disease. I just keep getting rid of things I consider to be too picky, too dainty, too pesty or whatever. I don't have the time and patience to fuss with things that are not happy growing here for the most part. Crape myrtles always have been pretty much bulletproof and that's one of my favorite things about them. I hope that doesn't change. In this country, sadly, when a plant comes into widespread favor and acceptance, we as a nation tend to overplant it, and then the vast amounts of plants available do seem to lead to more diseases and pests on that particular kind of plant. I do try to keep enough diversity among plantings that we still have lots of beauty around if one thing or another falls prey to a pernicious disease or pest.

I hope you can get a handle on the scale. Just writing about it yesterday made me paranoid, so the first thing I did when I got outside was to check my crape myrtles. They remain pest-free at this point in time, but I'll keep a close eye on them for sure.

Keep us posted on what works (or doesn't work) for you!

Dawn

Rats. Now I'm going out to check my crape myrtles.

I think it will be a long time before we understand CCD. I have cut way back on any insecticides I use, still have a ways to go. I have a garden full of bees, I know this because every time I water I have bees working around me. I have bees, frogs,spiders and all sorts of little creatures working in my garden somI must be doing something right.

The scale had best pass my myrtles right on by!!!!??

Yes, you're doing something right, stockergal. It is hard for me to use any insecticides at all because I love being surrounded by bees, flies, dragonflies, lady bugs, green lacewings and so many other beneficial insects in the garden. Gardens full of birds, frogs, toads, turtles, lizards, spiders, etc. are healthy gardens too. That is one of my favorite things about gardening. Oh, and butterflies and moths! I feel like the more I avoid pesticides, the more good insects we will have. Right now the hummingbirds are everywhere. I'm not sure if they're already migrating south, but some of the early birds may be. Traffic at both the feeders and the garden plants has picked up significantly in the last 10 days. The purple martins left during the last week in July. I don't remember the day. I think I heard them last Sunday or Monday and then not at all since then. To me, the realization that the purple martins are heading south is my first big clue that we're past summer's midway point.