{"id":1926,"date":"2021-11-21T00:00:39","date_gmt":"2021-11-21T00:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/magicalmonarchs.com\/?p=1926"},"modified":"2021-11-21T23:00:01","modified_gmt":"2021-11-21T23:00:01","slug":"milkweed-bugs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/magicalmonarchs.com\/index.php\/2021\/11\/21\/milkweed-bugs\/","title":{"rendered":"Milkweed Bugs"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignright size-medium is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/magicalmonarchs.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/IMG_6352-225x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1927\" width=\"237\" height=\"316\" srcset=\"https:\/\/magicalmonarchs.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/IMG_6352-225x300.jpg 225w, https:\/\/magicalmonarchs.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/IMG_6352-122x162.jpg 122w, https:\/\/magicalmonarchs.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/IMG_6352-rotated.jpg 480w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 237px) 100vw, 237px\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Not that you don\u2019t have enough issues with the aphids on your plants, now you go out to the garden and find little red and black bugs.\u00a0 Yes, you have milkweed bugs.\u00a0 Oh great.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><br>The female bugs lay around 25 eggs or more per day in little groups on your plants or in the seed pod.\u00a0 While they start out yellowish in color, they turn red before they hatch, a mere 5 days later.\u00a0 They are tiny red ovals with they first hatch.\u00a0 As they grow, they go through 5 molts.\u00a0 The nymphs become increasingly spotted and grow wing buds as they mature.\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignleft size-medium is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/magicalmonarchs.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/IMG_5684-300x215.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1928\" width=\"286\" height=\"205\" srcset=\"https:\/\/magicalmonarchs.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/IMG_5684-300x215.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/magicalmonarchs.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/IMG_5684-226x162.jpeg 226w, https:\/\/magicalmonarchs.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/IMG_5684.jpeg 640w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 286px) 100vw, 286px\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>They new adults are yellow and black but quickly grow more red in color as they age.\u00a0 It\u2019s only a week or so after the last molt that the adult males are fertile and in a week or two the females will be laying eggs.\u00a0 The more milkweed seeds that are available, the more eggs the female will lay, which probably explains why they like to lay eggs within the seed pods.\u00a0 They spend winter, spring and early summer in sheltered spots, waiting for your milkweed to mature.\u00a0 Ugh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignright size-medium is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/magicalmonarchs.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/IMG_6193-270x300.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1929\" width=\"236\" height=\"262\" srcset=\"https:\/\/magicalmonarchs.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/IMG_6193-270x300.jpeg 270w, https:\/\/magicalmonarchs.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/IMG_6193-146x162.jpeg 146w, https:\/\/magicalmonarchs.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/IMG_6193.jpeg 480w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 236px) 100vw, 236px\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p><br>The good news is that they don\u2019t do much damage to the plant.\u00a0 They will destroy seeds if the pods aren\u2019t protected, so if you want to save seeds, be sure to cover the pods with netting.\u00a0 If you want to get rid of them, they can be shaken off the plants into a bucket of soapy water or the same squish and rinse that you use for aphids.\u00a0 Again, you want to avoid any insecticide or soap that may linger and injure your caterpillars.\u00a0 You can see the variety of stages in these photos.<br><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Not that you don\u2019t have enough issues with the aphids on your plants, now you go out to the garden<\/p>\n<div class=\"read-button read_more_btn_text\"><a class=\"read_more\" href=\"https:\/\/magicalmonarchs.com\/index.php\/2021\/11\/21\/milkweed-bugs\/\">Read Now<span class=\"arrow_readm\"> &#x25BA;<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/magicalmonarchs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post\/1926"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/magicalmonarchs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/magicalmonarchs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magicalmonarchs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magicalmonarchs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1926"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/magicalmonarchs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post\/1926\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1936,"href":"https:\/\/magicalmonarchs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post\/1926\/revisions\/1936"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/magicalmonarchs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magicalmonarchs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magicalmonarchs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}