Some kind of insect is building a home in my San Pedro!!!

[tryptonaut]

I just discovered by accident today that some kind of flying insect (on first glance it looked like a dark, small bee or wasp, but NOT and ichneumon wasp, I'm pretty sure) was carrying a piece of leaf into the soil right next to my youngest San Pedro cutting. It seemed like the insect was going right down into the cutting (which hasn't even rooted yet).

Despite the fact that I admire the insect's taste and that I too want to live inside a mescaline-house, I was really shocked. It's not too bad if the cutting dies, but what if the insect's family will want to live inside my other precious full-grown cacti? How can I prevent that? And does anybody know what insect lives in Germany that looks like a small, dark (almost entirely black) bee or wasp and that digs his home into the base of a San Pedro cactus?

 

[druglessdouglas]

is it inside the cacti or just the soil? i wouldnt worry about it. if it is a wasp it will be a predator, and highly specific to one type of prey. can you get a photo, or describe head, thorax and abdomen colour?

 

[Subtle_Nod]

If you know it is still inside - you could cling film / saran wrap around the cactus and the pot - assuming you can get under it easily.

Otherwise, just over the top and around. How long it lived for would depend on how much air you can avoid capturing.

That is probably extra paranoid and could damage the cactus - but it has a good chance of securing the larger ones if you decide it is worth it.

It's probably not.

 

[Pariah]

what about one of nature's insecticides - nicotine - soak a bit of tobacco in water over night, then spray a bit on the soil. shouldn't have an affect on the cactus, but might be a good idea to research it before you try it - I'm pulling this from memory, so best look into it yourself (assuming you want rid of the insect/s, and don't mind the method).

 

[user_1919]

What ever you decide to do, please take into consideration the insects life. Nothing deserves to die, not even insects because of our human needs and pleasures.

PEACE & LOVE

 

[GOD]

"what about one of nature's insecticides"

What about them ??? Are there 6 million flys ??? And do you mean "Cyclon B" ??? Should we all masterbate ??? ( laugh please )

I dont think its eating the cactus , it might be eating parasites . Maybe its one of those predator flys you can buy from grow shops that has escaped !!!!

I have some friends living with me , they moved in a few years ago and now i have to be carefull not to tread on them when they go on safari and explore my whole flat . I have started doing a long term , a few million years , experiment . I pick them up when they fall out of the tree they live under when they have been harvesting the honey like secretion the tree exhudes and want to see if they develop an idea of a god and start an ant religeon . At first they would run off , now they seem to have got to know me and dont throw a wobbler or do a bunk any more .

 

[Pariah]

Yup, nicotine - the final solution... against insects.



I can see where your coming from user, although its difficult to apply ethical restrictions in the same way to all organisms, this topic's probably worthy of its own thread, some sort of ethics involving other organisms discussion.

Hehe, shindlers list music just came on my mediaplayer from random

I'm aware we should be mindful of other organisms right to life, and its easier to destroy somthing that you don't easily relate to emotionally, but where do you draw the line? each of us are murdering microbes by the bucketload each day, step on insects without even knowing it. How do you weigh the life of an insect (that lives for a month or so), against the life of a cactus - which can get... well, really damn old.

Do you let "nature take its course" - if you had a parasite in you, lets say malaria parasite, would you A) let it breed inside you, increasing the chances of someone else becoming parasitised, and risk your own death or do you B) nuke the little bastards with quinine.

ofcourse I don't know if the insect in this cactus is a parasite or beneficial, just throwing ideas around really.

 

[druglessdouglas]

if its a wasp its not a parasite on the cacti. malaria cures syphilis, so malaria can be usefull if youve got a dose and cant get or take penisillin (just thaught id chuck that in)

 

[user_1919]

I'm aware we should be mindful of other organisms right to life, and its easier to destroy somthing that you don't easily relate to emotionally, but where do you draw the line? each of us are murdering microbes by the bucketload each day, step on insects without even knowing it. How do you weigh the life of an insect (that lives for a month or so), against the life of a cactus - which can get... well, really damn old.

Yes I know, where do you draw the line? For me personally, I would let the insect live. I weight the results; the insect gets beautiful home inside a mescaline containing cactus, or you kill the insect, eat the cactus for our own pleasure. I DO NOT classify any other type of organism as a greater or lesser being than I, so this situation is pretty well a life(insects) vs pleasure(being able to eat the cactus). Is it a single insect? Could you observe the insect, and once it has left it's home, block off it's entrance so it cannot get back; I'm sure it would find a new home, this way both the insect and the cactus benefit.

PEACE & LOVE

 

[GOD]

Is your insect about 5 - 7 mm long , about 3 mm wide with a black body and a dark red almost black head with a white stripe between its eyes ? I`ve been watching my , all non drug , cacti and have seen one sitting on one . I had the impression that it was eating , and the only thing it could have been eating is spider mites my apartment is infested with .

Pariah , i use a nikotin and green soap mixture to spray my plants when the mites start to make visble webs . I put a boiler suit on with a hat , goggles and a towel over my nose and mouth + plastic gloves . I have to do it at 2 am so that the neighbours dont freak out . It works very well for a few weeks , but its virtualy imposible to get rid of them unless you burn your house down or gas it for a few months sealed off in a big tent . Neem is a waste of time , when one uses it one breeds super resistant mites . Killer mites are a waste of time to because they just wander off very quickly , if you use them and watch them you will see that . After about a half an hour they are all over the walls and windows . They are only good for closed rooms / green houses wich are full of plants . They dont stop anything they just slow it down . The worst thing is that they are bread in containers and fed spider mites so when you use them you are also putting the nasty spider mites on your plants with the good ones . Then there is the problem that some of the feed spider mites are not even seen by the killers so they breed more = the problem gets bigger .

What i said about cyclon B was maybe a bad joke . One thought followed another and thats what came out . I was laughing hysterical the whole time and it wasnt ment personaly it was just a reply to what i read . I do think that life is sacred and dont kill anything deliberately ............ exept spider mites , moths and mosquitos because its either me or them . I`m sorry if you felt bad about it .

 

[druglessdouglas]

spider mites are a curse. you get a new hatch every 5 days or so and they quickly become immune to everything. my last crop had cyclamin mites i got free w the cuttings. unfortunately the guy who gave me the cuttings bred them strong as hed watered down insecticide and treated them. i think they liked it. they took a lot of killing. predators work well till theyve eaten all the adults then wander off or die. then the mite eggs hatch and your back to square one(as god said) if youve any sort of natural predator you should encourage it. no solitary wasp will harm your cacti unless it disturbs the roots too much. its your friend

 

[tryptonaut]

What ever you decide to do, please take into consideration the insects life. Nothing deserves to die, not even insects because of our human needs and pleasures.

I already considered that. I won't deliberately kill any insect because of that one cutting of San Pedro. I will however change my mind if more of them come and dig into my other San Pedros.

I'm sorry I haven't had the time yet to investigate further. I was considering digging out the whole thing because frankly the cutting doesn't look very healthy...

I can't imagine some wasp-like predator would dig into the San Pedro - but it looked like it. Then again, I always thought mescaline was an effective insectizide similar to nicotine (why would those cacti produce mescaline in the first place? Surely not for our pleasure, but for effective protection). And by "similar" I don't mean chemically, I know nicotine is something completely different (however that's about where my chemical knowledge ends...)

 

[tryptonaut]

Is your insect about 5 - 7 mm long , about 3 mm wide with a black body and a dark red almost black head with a white stripe between its eyes ?

No, it's a little bigger than that, like 2cm long and 0.5 to 0.7 cm wide. I couldn't detect any red color and no white stripe. It looked almost completely black, but with some wasp-like stripes, only they seemed grey-black instead of yellow-black.
The sting-part (the abdomen I guess would be the correct term) seemed a little more pointed than that of a wasp, but only at the very end.

I got a better look at it when I poured some water on the spot where it had vanished into the soil. I didn't see anything coming out, but suddenly, like out of nowhere, it came flying and almost seemed like it was trying to attack me.

 

[druglessdouglas]

solitary wasps dont sting. what looks like a sting is an ovipositer. they either lay eggs in some unfortunate animal, like a caterpillar or beetle, or if they are gall wasps(yours isnt) a plant. some parasitic wasps lay their eggs in the larvae of gall wasps. the wierd thing is some have an ovipositor tipped with zinc

 

[Goran.Hrsak]

Do not worry. No insects attack cacti! 8)
Maybe something else you have in earth? From where have you recived your cacti? Have U maybe replant your cacti? If U have in what, how soil looks and what it contains.?
Cacti doesn't get attacked by bugs. In Europe and out of natural habbitat.
Cacti isn't Salvia or MJ with leafes with possible green lice-louse-nit attack-manifest.

Peace
Light
Love
Bless


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[druglessdouglas]

lots of insects attack cacti. hundreds. i have problems with insects all the time.

:?

 

[Meduzz]

My peruvian torch has a fungus problem I think... It has a greywhite layer that cracks where cacti cell divide. I'll open a thread when I've got some pics

 

[druglessdouglas]

meduzz- buy a food safe fungicide fast. suitable for soft fruit and systemic. if you can see the scabs on the outside the fungi is all through the cacti water storage cells

 

[tryptonaut]

It's been some time, sorry - I have in the meantime re-potted the cutting (still don't know if it will grow at all, it's a little small). What I found in the earth below the cactus was some leaf-cuttings (like a nest). But there was nothing else in it. I guess I scared the insect away, and it had not been digging into the cactus anyways, just in the soil below...

 

[druglessdouglas]

one thing to watch out for digging into the soil is vine weevel. their larvae love cacti roots and will eat right into the base of the plant