Milkweed beetle and monarch cats

[robynadair]

This year I planted some "hello yellow" milkweed along with my usual red/orange CA favorite and it has attracted more milkweed beetles than I care to count. I want to make sure they DO NOT eat the monarch eggs nor do they gobble up very small instars. I ask, because I have a very low hatching rate here in SoCal even though it's nice and warm and they should be everywhere. I posted a similar distrust of these little red and black critters on a site where the "beetle fans" post.....and they swear these things only eat the plant. I feel like my eggs go missing overnight. Do I have something to worry about here.....should I be gathering them up in a jar and throwing in the ocean.

[Mona Miller]

Some people believe in sharing their milkweed with other creatures. I don't. I kill all the milkweed beetles. I can never get rid of them. They come out of know where to attack my milkweed. There are so many other things that eat the eggs: lacewing larvae, wasp, ants, ladybugs, spiders (eat night and day). The eggs in my garden are disappearing faster than the Monarchs can lay them.

[sbannister]

[I feel like my eggs go missing overnight. Do I have something to worry about here.....should I be gathering them up in a jar and throwing in the ocean. [/quote]

I have the eggs going missing overnight too - and I am also in a warm climate. It must be some predator that is active at night. I suspect the ants.

[Mona Miller]

Spiders, earwings, etc., etc. One night I was out collecting leaves and saw a spider carry off a first instar caterpillar. I wasn't fast enough to stop it.

I'd suspect that some invertebrates eat day and night, just like the Monarch caterpillars do.

[summerluver]

One other possible culprit could be ants. My plants get covered with milweed aphids, and they secrete a nectar which ants and wasps find wonderful. The ants will actually move the aphids around and farm them, stroking them which gets them to produce more nectar. I've seen an ant taking on two big tussock moth caterpillars a hundered times his size, with his pincers out, trying to get to their soft underbody. I'm sure the ants get our eggs and first and second instars too, while roaming around the plants.

[JFS61]

Are you talking about Milkweed bugs, or Milkweed Assassin bugs, as they are two completely different breeds of cat (no pun intended).

[Paul Cherubini]

I'm sure robynadair is talking about milkweed beetles because in coastal California, we don't have Assassin bugs and don't have to worry about being bitten by them like you folks in the eastern USA do.

[Mona Miller]

http://books.google.com/books?id=vE-u08 ... ia&f=false
"California Insects" By Jerry A. Powell, Charles L. Hogue
"Assassin Bugs, Kissing Bugs, Family Reduviidae"

[Paul Cherubini]

I grew up in coastal California chasing butterflies the whole time + collecting monarchs most of my adult along the coast for tagging, interstate transfer experiments and so forth. I never once saw an assasin bug or caught one in my net. Ditto the interior regions of California where I have lived for 30 years.

In the eastern USA, I see assasin bugs routinely and got a terrible bite from one

[Mona Miller]

Let me see if I get this. You don't see something; therefore, it isn't there.