Garden Pests and Diseases: Friend or Foe #5, 1 by Night_Bloom

Night_Bloom wrote:
Sorry, I've been sort of AWOL lately guys - it was a busy week, but I'm going to try to get by more often.

Your baby stink bugs were cute, konkreteblonde.

And hee, margu - I am flattered, but I think you need some better dreams.

barbur - I'm glad that you are enjoying the threads.

For your first question - the one that I know of, I think, is the Bayer Advanced 2 in 1 garden stakes. This sounds to me like something that you stick in the ground next to your plants. I might be concerned at any treatment you might use, however, due to the proximity of your tree to a pond. You may want to go to your local extension agent to get some advice and see what the regulations are in your area - depending on if it's a private pond, part of a watershed, etc. Some insecticides - even ones that are fairly harmless usually, like pyrethrins - become deadly to fish and aquatic invertebrates. The label might help you to decide.

As for your second question, I can see where I might've confused you. Yes, assassin bugs (Reduviidae) are all predatory, but unfortunately - especially in their young nymph stages - some resemble leaf bugs (Coreidae) which are not. The main difference that I use to tell small Reduviidae from the Coreidae is the fat "beak", which I'm glad you got to see firsthand. Of course for the stink bugs, that is also the way to tell them apart. There are, however, predatory bugs that don't have fat beaks - and I'll be posting a picture of one of those tonight/this morning.

I'll try to dig up a picture of a leaf bug and an assassin bug to post soon, too, so that you can see how they might look similar. I think there are pictures of both somewhere on these threads, but I don't think that I compared and contrasted them.

Tonight I have a predator that I caught in the act at my porch light. This is again a true bug - Hemiptera. It's called a damsel bug (family Nabidae). They are fairly small predators. This one is in the process of eating a small leafhopper.