Well, there are many hours in a day and they don't have far to go. These
things crawl, are splashed about when we water. I was amazed to see how
fast adult mealybugs are. As fast as any other bug when it puts its mind to
it. (I was chasing it with a toothpick smasher at the time. I chased it
around the axil of a leaf a couple of times before I realized I was chasing
the same one, not many. It burrowed deeprer into the leaf axil or dodged
away as my toothpick tip gouged into virgin leaf. I was shocked.) I have
new found respect for mealies, which heretofore I thought made a sort of
coccoon and set up house from which the young sort of drifted away.

Same with scale. While I haven't seen the scale move, I have seen their
juvenile start at one place (I'd note their position on a leaf and remind
myself to get to it the next day when conditions were correct for spraying)
and end up completely elsewhere on the leaf, usually congregating at the tip
and along leaf margins (speaking of Catts)

Bugs. I hate 'em. I have one paph that the mealies have burrowed into the
potting medium and Enstar's label says I should drench the medium (ie
submerge the pot till all bubbles cease). For that I'll need a bigger
bottle of Enstar! By comparison I found taking care of scale easier. I'd
use a toothbrush to debride the infested area, wash with alcohol then treat
with orthene wp systemic. Voila. These damn mealies however.... grr. I
think I'm going to have to repot.

Which brings up the notion of sterilizing the potting medium, because I
*just* repotted. So now I wonder if there were juveniles in my medium to
begin with. So I'll have to bake some and see if there's adifernce.

OK. I'll shut up now. Who said orchids were easy? I never had these
problems before I started taking care of these thgs.....

K Barrett
"henry wolf" wrote in message
...
Mealybugs, Scale, Spidermites. How do the young of each of those pests
get from plant to plant, even over far distances?
Do they fly, crawl or do they use only transportation by us? Those
buggers are so hard to get rid of permanently