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Caterpillars in sac attacking apple tree
Much to my horror I discoverd cobweb like "sacs" of caterpillars and
their small black eggs in my apple tree. I live in Denmark but have only come across the phenomenom in my childhood in the UK. I remember one summer in the mid 80's that a warning came on the news about sacs of caterpillars that could cause an allergic reaction if touched. They hung in sacs on trees and I remember we had a tree like thsi ion our front garden. The question is how do I get rid of them as they seem to be slowly eating away at both the leaves and the small fruits on my apple tree? P |
#2
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Caterpillars in sac attacking apple tree
Wait until its dark out(this is when all the caterpilliars come home to nest)
and either remove it by hand or if they freak you out, a hard stream of water. By the way, those "little black eggs" are actually little black poopies.. heheh anyway they wont hurt you, good luck! Toad |
#3
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Caterpillars in sac attacking apple tree
Tear at the web and wasps will eat the caterpillars, or use Bt-K which is sold
as Dipel or BioWorm and is a dust. The caterpillar ingests it and gets sick. It will not harm anything other than the caterpillars, even if birds eat them. Victoria On Sat, 07 Jun 2003 02:22:40 +0200, pelmar wrote: Much to my horror I discoverd cobweb like "sacs" of caterpillars and their small black eggs in my apple tree. I live in Denmark but have only come across the phenomenom in my childhood in the UK. I remember one summer in the mid 80's that a warning came on the news about sacs of caterpillars that could cause an allergic reaction if touched. They hung in sacs on trees and I remember we had a tree like thsi ion our front garden. The question is how do I get rid of them as they seem to be slowly eating away at both the leaves and the small fruits on my apple tree? P |
#4
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Caterpillars in sac attacking apple tree
pelmar wrote in message ...
Much to my horror I discoverd cobweb like "sacs" of caterpillars and their small black eggs in my apple tree. I live in Denmark but have only come across the phenomenom in my childhood in the UK. I remember one summer in the mid 80's that a warning came on the news about sacs of caterpillars that could cause an allergic reaction if touched. They hung in sacs on trees and I remember we had a tree like thsi ion our front garden. The question is how do I get rid of them as they seem to be slowly eating away at both the leaves and the small fruits on my apple tree? P Take a plastic bag and scoop the caterpillars nest and all up, tie it shut and let it bake in the sun. Tussock Moth caterpillars are the ones with irrritating spines. No problem with tent caterpillars so far. Europe might have different ones. |
#5
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Caterpillars in sac attacking apple tree
What you're seeing are Tent Caterpillars. They are very common on various
fruit trees. Most hardware stores, including Home Depot and Lowe's, have remedies to get rid of them. It's usually sold in a liquid that you mix and spray on the tree. I also saw a can of Ortho Wasp killer in the store the other day that listed Tent Caterpillars as one that it kills. That would be ideal because the can sprays about 20' in distance, making it easy to reach them. If you can do a search on Yahoo or Google, you can find pictures of tent caterpillars to confirm my suspicions. Good luck. Penny Zone 7b - North Carolina "pelmar" wrote in message ... Much to my horror I discoverd cobweb like "sacs" of caterpillars and their small black eggs in my apple tree. I live in Denmark but have only come across the phenomenom in my childhood in the UK. I remember one summer in the mid 80's that a warning came on the news about sacs of caterpillars that could cause an allergic reaction if touched. They hung in sacs on trees and I remember we had a tree like thsi ion our front garden. The question is how do I get rid of them as they seem to be slowly eating away at both the leaves and the small fruits on my apple tree? P |
#6
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Caterpillars in sac attacking apple tree
"Marley1372" wrote in message ... Wait until its dark out(this is when all the caterpilliars come home to nest) and either remove it by hand or if they freak you out, a hard stream of water. By the way, those "little black eggs" are actually little black poopies.. heheh anyway they wont hurt you, good luck! Toad Or use a long stick. That's what I've done. The birds will eat the worms in no time, assuming you have a good population of birds. |
#7
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Caterpillars in sac attacking apple tree
Much to my horror I discoverd cobweb like "sacs" of caterpillars and their
small black eggs in my apple tree. You have tent caterpillars. Spray with an insecticide which is listed for fruit trees. You will probably have to spray several times. Wait until evening when they are in their web and spray it heavily. You can also kill them if you have a blowtorch with a very narrow flame, so you can aim it right at the web without damaging the tree. I don't know what you mean by small black eggs. That may be excrement. You won't find eggs until the fall. In the fall, look over your tree for small shiny egg masses on the trunk or branches. Cut the branch off if possible & burn it. Otherwise remove all the eggs & burn them. Iris, Central NY, Zone 5a, Sunset Zone 40 "If we see light at the end of the tunnel, It's the light of the oncoming train." Robert Lowell (1917-1977) |
#8
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Caterpillars in sac attacking apple tree
Iris Cohen wrote: Much to my horror I discoverd cobweb like "sacs" of caterpillars and their small black eggs in my apple tree. You have tent caterpillars. Spray with an insecticide which is listed for fruit trees. You will probably have to spray several times. Wait until evening when they are in their web and spray it heavily. You can also kill them if you have a blowtorch with a very narrow flame, so you can aim it right at the web without damaging the tree. The occurence of tent caterpillars is very cyclical in nature - some years there are few, if any, tents visble while in other years (like this one), the population seems to be huge and very widespread. Many folks panic at the appearance of these creatures, but they are short-lived and with the exception of very young and vulnerable trees, seldom do any significant damage. Any defoliation will not be permanent - trees releaf very easily. Tent caterpillars do not feed on anything but foliage - your fruit will be unaffected. Recommended treatment is to remove and destroy the nests before the caterpillars emerge or while they are still very young. This is best done very early in the day or late evening, when they regroup at their nests. When mature, they do not return to the nests and control (if required) is done by application of a bio-control, Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis), which affects only caterpillars. If they are mature enough, they stop feeding and Bt is no longer effective, however their damage stage is also over. Birds will take care of a good many, anyway. :-) You DO NOT need to spray with a toxic insecticide. The damage does not warrant it and it will destroy more beneficials than the target species, not to mention mucking up the rest of the environment and rendering your fruit inedible. If your tree is small enough, try hosing them out with a sharp stream of water. It will kill many and the others you can pick and destroy. I have given out this same information so often to clients and nursery customers this season, I should have a recording made - it seems to be the number one topic! pam - gardengal |
#9
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Caterpillars in sac attacking apple tree
On Sat, 7 Jun 2003 09:16:45 -0400, "Julia Green"
wrote: Or use a long stick. That's what I've done. The birds will eat the worms in no time, assuming you have a good population of birds. I have heard that in the eastern US, that Baltimore Orioles will eat tent caterpillars. Here in the western US, there are no birds (as far as I know) that will touch the yucky things. Bt can be sprayed directly on the leaves, but some other posters have recommended poisons, which should not be used. Mechanical removal is best, unless your trees are too tall to reach them. We are in the middle of a maximum part of the cycle, and we have the caterpillars everywhere. They were thick on the sidewalk, and I figured out that they cannot swim. So I used a wet/dry shop vac (filled with water and a little bit of biodegradable soap) to suck them all up. |
#10
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Caterpillars in sac attacking apple tree
"Paul Below" wrote in message I have heard that in the eastern US, that Baltimore Orioles will eat tent caterpillars. Here in the western US, there are no birds (as far as I know) that will touch the yucky things. All I know is that I poked the nests with a big, long stick, dragged down as much of the crap as I could, left it on the ground, and, within a couple of days, had no more caterpillars I've done this a couple of times when my weeping cherry had a lot of nests. I haven't done anything when some of my other cherry trees have had a few nests and there has never been a problem. I also clip bagworms off of my various evergreens when it looks like they have too many. No real problems with that either. |
#11
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Caterpillars in sac attacking apple tree
Don't know if they are the same pestilence that we have around here (NC,
USA)...called tent caterpillars. Touching them won't harm you, but you can destroy the web with a stick and it should destroy the colony...birds will probably eat them. Some people do the drastic and cut the limb out of the tree...it is not necessary to do so, and does more harm than good. Good luck, S "pelmar" wrote in message ... Much to my horror I discoverd cobweb like "sacs" of caterpillars and their small black eggs in my apple tree. I live in Denmark but have only come across the phenomenom in my childhood in the UK. I remember one summer in the mid 80's that a warning came on the news about sacs of caterpillars that could cause an allergic reaction if touched. They hung in sacs on trees and I remember we had a tree like thsi ion our front garden. The question is how do I get rid of them as they seem to be slowly eating away at both the leaves and the small fruits on my apple tree? P |
#12
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Caterpillars in sac attacking apple tree
Ya, but wasps are the predator of bagworms.
On Sat, 07 Jun 2003 11:32:37 GMT, "Penny Morgan" wrote: What you're seeing are Tent Caterpillars. They are very common on various fruit trees. Most hardware stores, including Home Depot and Lowe's, have remedies to get rid of them. It's usually sold in a liquid that you mix and spray on the tree. I also saw a can of Ortho Wasp killer in the store the other day that listed Tent Caterpillars as one that it kills. That would be ideal because the can sprays about 20' in distance, making it easy to reach them. If you can do a search on Yahoo or Google, you can find pictures of tent caterpillars to confirm my suspicions. Good luck. Penny Zone 7b - North Carolina "pelmar" wrote in message ... Much to my horror I discoverd cobweb like "sacs" of caterpillars and their small black eggs in my apple tree. I live in Denmark but have only come across the phenomenom in my childhood in the UK. I remember one summer in the mid 80's that a warning came on the news about sacs of caterpillars that could cause an allergic reaction if touched. They hung in sacs on trees and I remember we had a tree like thsi ion our front garden. The question is how do I get rid of them as they seem to be slowly eating away at both the leaves and the small fruits on my apple tree? P |
#14
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Caterpillars in sac attacking apple tree
ATTENTION:
Ignore the following information. As usual, it's awful. I agree, its obnoxious that people still reccommend spraying when you can simply manually remove the damn things. Not only that, the spray wont reach them in the nest. Some people dont care and they just spray the shit out of everything they see. I had a customer come in today that wanted to spray diazinon all over his deck and patio furniture because they were covered with "little red spiders". When I asked him if it bothered him that his wife and kids will be sitting on chairs covered with pesticide, he said "Ill just hose them off". Toad |
#15
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Caterpillars in sac attacking apple tree
"Marley1372" wrote in message ... ATTENTION: Ignore the following information. As usual, it's awful. I agree, its obnoxious that people still reccommend spraying when you can simply manually remove the damn things. Not only that, the spray wont reach them in the nest. Some people dont care and they just spray the shit out of everything they see. I had a customer come in today that wanted to spray diazinon all over his deck and patio furniture because they were covered with "little red spiders". When I asked him if it bothered him that his wife and kids will be sitting on chairs covered with pesticide, he said "Ill just hose them off". Toad Diazinon, is truly dangerous stuff. I personaly believe that my sister died from complications due to exposure to it. Broad spectrum insectecides, though convienent, are dangerous. I am glad that diazinon is going off the market, finally. We have the ability to buy chemicals, that at one time required a license, freelly without question. That is not good, in my opinion. Anyways these are just my thoughts, and I am keeping it brief. If you want to talk in depth email me. Len |
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