Bedbug soldier (redbug wingless)

Many of us have known the bug as a child since childhood. This small size and bright color of the insect can often be found on a personal plot. In nature, there are about 40 thousand types of bugs, but not everyone can boast of an original coloring. Most people, admiring the colorful ornaments on the back of a sodate, are not even aware of the extent of the damage that it can cause to garden owners. This article tells about the danger of bugs by soldiers and methods of dealing with them.

Insect description

The harbinger of warmth and spring lives mainly in Eurasia. The moderate zone of the European continent is favorable for him. People call the insect bug a soldier because it is one of the first to be born after long frosty days. Pyrrhocoris Apterus, a red bug, a ground bug or a fireman bug - this is the name for the representative of the soldier's half-winged bug group. The pests also got this name from the fact that they prefer to form whole colonies, consisting of adults and young offspring.

Interesting!

The bug bug has a slightly flattened body, painted in red and black tones. In length, it can reach up to 12 mm. The pronounced type of coloring of the winged redbug is its main distinguishing feature. Due to the lack of wings, the pest cannot fly.

The mouth of a bug of a soldier is a piercing-sucking proboscis, which in a calm state has a horizontal position. Insects use this organ to puncture the plant membrane and suck out the plant cell juice - this is what soldiers bugs eat. A strong proboscis mouth is able to pierce the chitinous shell of a dead insect in order to get enough of the remaining liquid in it. In the absence of berries, fruits or vegetables, soldiers even eat dead vertebrates, gathering in groups on their corpses.

After reading the description of the soldier, many will easily recall the image of this pest. Below you can see what a bug soldier looks like in the photo.

Breeding

The reproduction of this type of insect is very intense. Therefore, finding even a couple of bedbugs in your area, you should sound the alarm. After all, a massive invasion is inevitable. The process of pairing pests is very unusual: the seed cells of the male fall into the abdomen of the female when the partners are pressed against each other by the back of the body. As a result of which there may be a feeling that they are measured by forces, trying to pull each other in their direction.

One egg laying can contain up to 3 dozen eggs. Pearl-white eggs, shaped like rice grains. Bedbugs try to lay them down precisely on those plants that serve as a source of food. However, egg laying can also be seen on a dried tree, rotten stump, wooden building or on an old fence.

After 10 days, tiny larvae of the soldiers appear from the eggs. They are distinguished from an adult not only by their smaller size. The chitinous cover of the larvae does not have a brightly colorful ornament, like that of older relatives, it is mainly red in shades with barely noticeable black spots.It is precisely by these features that the species belonging to the red bug larvae is easily determined.

The food for the larvae of the bug soldier is the juice of young shoots. This preference is explained by a still weak short proboscis, which is not yet able to pierce the firm stems of plants. Very often, newly-born offspring can be found on a birch tree, the juice of which is a favorite treat.

Insects spend winter in hibernation, pre-selecting a place for wintering. The main thing is that it is warm and dry. Usually pests hide in the crevices of wooden structures or bark. With the arrival of warm days, they crawl out to bask in the sun. It is at such moments that you can determine the habitat of insects.

What harm does an insect do?

Earlier, the bug soldier was not ranked as a harmful insect. But over time, the behavior of these representatives of nature began to change: they began to attack other insects. The soldier began to bring harm to the bug when he began to exterminate the harvests of gardens and vegetable gardens.

Indeed, for a full-fledged existence, an insect needs plant juice, which is their food. As a result of mass attacks of pests, plants cease to bear fruit, begin to wilt, and subsequently may even die. Fruits also suffer from the invasion of the half-winged, losing their appearance and becoming unfit for food. The vineyards are especially serious threat, as harmful insects damage not only the stems of the plant, but also the fruits themselves. Therefore, it will not be amiss to know how to get rid of bed bugs.

On a note!

A bug is not dangerous for human health. Therefore, do not panic if by chance an uninvited guest ends up in your apartment. Getting rid of the pest in the house is quite simple: you just need to take it out to the street.

Ways to fight

Before you start fighting with a soldier, you need to make sure that the summer cottage is infected with this particular pest. After all, the destruction of other types of insects may need completely different methods of control.

The presence of a soldier's larva on a plant can be seen by the following symptoms:

• on cultivated plants, buds and flowers fall off almost immediately after their appearance;
• the presence of yellow spots on the cabbage leaves is another evidence of infection with red bugs;
• umbrella type plants (dill or coriander) dry too quickly;
• affected young shoots of carrots or beets may lag behind in development, and the leaves undergo twisting and drying.

In order not to feel the harm of the soldier in his garden, it is necessary to promptly withdraw the entire population, even if the consequences of the defeat on the plants have not yet been discovered.

1. So that red bugs do not hit garden crops, it is better to plant them at some distance from alfalfa and perennial legumes. Since it is these plants that serve as insects' homes in the cold season. With the advent of new shoots, pests will certainly move to them.
2. To prevent the spread of soldiers, weeds and alfalfa are mowed as low as possible, after which they are burned. This makes it possible to destroy the egg laying bugs placed on them as much as possible.
3. Before planting new crops in a vacant lot, it is necessary to rid the territory of such weeds as wormwood, quinoa or shiritsa by subjecting them to burning.
4. Red bugs can be removed and folk remedies. To do this, use onion husk, a decoction of which is sprayed with infected plants. For the same purpose apply wood ash, a solution of mustard or laundry soap (a bar of soap on a bucket of water).
5. Chemical means will help to get rid of a semi-winged in the garden. One of these is Bankol - a completely safe means for humans. To prepare a solution, 7 ml of the insecticide is diluted in 10 l of water and infected cultures are treated with a sprayer.
   

   

6. You can also get rid of the bugs of firefighters Karbofos and Aktara. Pesticides are diluted in accordance with the doses indicated in the instructions and treated with plants. Insecticides have a neuroparalytic effect, which leads to paralysis, and subsequently to the death of pests.
7. A more gentle method of controlling bugs is the planting of cimicifugi (a plant from the ranunculus family) or black cohosh. The smell of these plants is not to the liking of insects, as a result of which they are in a hurry to leave the territory of the garden.
8. Some gardeners, not wanting to use chemicals, try to remove bugs mechanically, collecting them from plants manually. But such a laborious process takes time and patience.

Do not underestimate the danger of a red bug. Excessive numbers of half-winged can cause significant harm to garden plantings. In addition, the fact that not only adults, but also their larvae are dangerous for plants, should be taken into account. Therefore, only a timely fight against the pest will help to enjoy the harvest.