PLANT PROTECTION 1 – Pests, Diseases and Weeds

PLANT PROTECTION 1 – Pests, Diseases and Weeds
ANTS, BEES, WASPS AND SAWFLIES
Summary - Some exceptions
ANTS
BEES
WASPS
SOME DISTINCTIVE FEATURES
1. ‘Waist’
2. Swelling on ‘waist’
3. Social insects (males, queens,
sterile workers and soldiers)
4. Compare with ‘white ants’
(termites) which belong to the
Order Isoptera
1. ‘Waist’
2. Hairs on body
3. Many have long tongue for supping
nectar
4. Bees feed their larvae on nectar
5. Broader bodies than wasps
6. Some bees are social insects (males
or drones, queens, sterile workers)
7. Use pollen and nectar as food for
larvae
1. ‘Waist’
2. No hairs on body
3. Most are parasitic on other insects,
some prey on other insects
4. Some wasps are social insects
(females, males, workers)
PLANT DAMAGE
DIRECT FEEDING DAMAGE.
LEAVES
Chewed edges, eg adult ants
INDIRECT DAMAGE.
Are attracted to honeydew
Spread scale insects
Repel parasitic insects which might
control scales, aphids, leafhoppers,
lerp insects, etc
Nest in turf, bowling greens, etc
May sting humans and animals
DIRECT FEEDING DAMAGE.
Possible transfer of pollen containing
genetically modified material
INDIRECT DAMAGE.
Adult leafcutting bees cut pieces of
leaves to build nests
Pollination of flowers hastens
withering reducing their commercial
value
Not all species sting. Honeybees
vary in their aggressiveness.
BENEFICIAL.
Their main value is as pollinators
DIRECT FEEDING DAMAGE.
LEAVES
FRUIT
STEMS
Galls, eg on eucalypts
General pest
Galls, eg citrus gall wasp,
sirex wasp (plus a fungus)
SAWFLIES
1. No ‘waist’
2. Stout saw-like ovipositor which the
female uses to cut plant tissue to
insert her eggs
3. Larvae are often caterpillar-like
(thoracic legs + 6-8 pairs prolegs),
some only have true legs on the
thorax.
INDIRECT DAMAGE.
May sting aggressively
BENEFICIAL.
Biological control agents, eg parasitic
wasps, predatory wasps
Pollinators
DIRECT FEEDING DAMAGE.
LEAVES
Chewing damage, eg
steelblue sawfly
Leafmining, eg leafblister
sawfly
Skeletonization, eg pear and
cherry slug
INDIRECT DAMAGE.
Unsightly and sometimes unpleasant
communal behaviour
Insects and allied pests - Hymenoptera (ants, bees, sawflies, wasps) 117