Garden Pests and Diseases: Help! Milkweed Bugs demolishing my milkweeds, 1 by terryr

terryr wrote:
Donna, those are Black Swallowtail caterpillars. Parsley is one of the hosts for them. Dill, fennel and rue and others.

plexi, I keep an old margarine tub filled with soapy water out on the back porch. When I have time, I go over to the milkweed and the butterfly weed and hand pick off the milkweed bug, and toss it into the soapy water. Do you catch lightening bugs? It's no different having the milkweed bug in your hand then having a lightening bug. The caterpillars make the plant look worse than the milkweed bug does. Please don't use any chemicals, even now. I have caterpillars out there now, you wouldn't want to kill any of them. I also wouldn't get rid of the milkweed, unless you don't want to have a host plant for Monarch's anymore. Just my opinion.