The M@%$#^ F$%#er Bit Me!

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FishinDave07

FishinDave07

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I found one of the bugs i mentioned in a post before and when i went to grab it to take a pic it sunk its head in my hand and latched on. Being in the Boy Scouts, I did the hot-match-on-the-tick technique, which the bug didn't like too much :D.

Anyways, i had seen about a dozen of these on my willamette and they are a little smaller than a dime:

P5120080.jpg
 
I imagine I might bite a motherf*cker too, if he was several hundred thousand times my size and tried to pick me up...:D
 
Looks like a tick to me. Pulled one off my dog not too long ago after a walk in woods. Go get checked for whatever it might be carrying.
 
:drunk:
Evan! said:
I imagine I might bite a motherf*cker too, if he was several hundred thousand times my size and tried to pick me up...:D
Click to expand...

I knew it was coming...:D

Wicked Daddy said:
Looks like a tick to me. Pulled one off my dog not too long ago after a walk in woods. Go get checked for whatever it might be carrying.
Click to expand...

So i should worry about ticks sucking up my hops' alpha/beta acids?
 
I am not a beer specialist... nor really a bug specialist, but ticks have eight legs... you look to have something from the coleoptera family there (beetle which is an insect). The picture is a little blurry, but it looks to have six legs and three body segments... is that true? If so, don't worry about it being a tick. I have heard of no beetles carrying lymes disease.
 
manaalaq said:
I am not a beer specialist... nor really a bug specialist, but ticks have eight legs... you look to have something from the coleoptera family there (beetle which is an insect). The picture is a little blurry, but it looks to have six legs and three body segments... is that true? If so, don't worry about it being a tick. I have heard of no beetles carrying lymes disease.
Click to expand...

Agreed. Besides, only deer ticks carry Lymes, and they are so small that I doubt you could pick one up very easily. I'm certainly no entomologist, but that's not a tick. But I'm not going to venture a guess as to what it is, though.
 
Smash a couple and see if they stink, a squished ladybug stinks to high heaven. And those rascals do bite.
 
If it is ladybugs (it REALLY looks like the yellow variety, females I think), it's a good thing. Means you have good bugs eating the bad bugs (aphids). Ladybugs love aphids.
 
byersj said:
If it is ladybugs (it REALLY looks like the yellow variety, females I think), it's a good thing. Means you have good bugs eating the bad bugs (aphids). Ladybugs love aphids.
Click to expand...

Yep, more the merrier! Many gardners buy thousands and let them thrive in their gardens. I never knew they could bite though. I picked a red variety up and put it outside the other day!

Do yellow lady bugs look that different then red ones? Never seen a lady bug with huge antenna sticking out!

http://msucares.com/news/print/lgnews/lg04/images/040923ladybug200.jpg
 
Looks like a Striped Cucumber Beetle, although I wasn't aware they bite! I can confirm that Lady Beetles bite, but that is not a Lady Beetle.

cucbtl.jpg
 
byersj said:
If it is ladybugs (it REALLY looks like the yellow variety, females I think), it's a good thing. Means you have good bugs eating the bad bugs (aphids). Ladybugs love aphids.
Click to expand...

I'm not so sure about that...They seem to be on the top half of my willamette and apparently 2 of the 3 tips of the climbing bine have been CHEWED off...I friggen hate bugs :mad:
 
I'm telling you, it's definitely not a Lady Beetle and most likely a Striped Cucumber Beetle. They seem to eat a lot more than Cucumbers, and another poster had something similar I believe.
 
zoebisch01 said:
I'm telling you, it's definitely not a Lady Beetle and most likely a Striped Cucumber Beetle. They seem to eat a lot more than Cucumbers, and another poster had something similar I believe.
Click to expand...

I agree, from looking at that bug site and other photos it seems you have Cucumber beetles!

Cucumber beetles are important pests of cucurbits. They cause four types of damage: seedling destruction, flower and foliage damage, root feeding, and transmission of bacterial wilt disease.

http://www.ext.vt.edu/departments/entomology/factsheets/cucbeet.html
 
Certainly in the beetle family. Have you tried ripping its wings off? That always entertained me as a kid. :D
 
zoebisch01 said:
I'm telling you, it's definitely not a Lady Beetle and most likely a Striped Cucumber Beetle. They seem to eat a lot more than Cucumbers, and another poster had something similar I believe.
Click to expand...

It is not often that my Masters in Entomology comes in useful, but I can pretty much confirm this. It is absolutely not a tick or a Lady Beetle. I would go with about 90% that the Striped Cucumber Beetle is right, though it could be a type of potato beetle. I could be more sure with a better pic.
 
I'd vote for a potato beetle, it looks a little too round and fat for a cucumber beetle. Although I can't think of why either of those critters would be on a hop plant. Of course, you are in Florida and have all kinds of bugs most of us are unfamiliar with.

I recall that in Fl, tomatoes, potatoes, etc. are grown as spring crops, before it gets too hot. Are there any of these nearby? I had a community garden plot once and one of the other gardeners filled their plot with potatoes and then never tended it. It got filled with plants and then with potatoe beetles which then at the whole plot to the ground, and then the hungry bastards set off to everyone else's plot and started munching on whatever they could find, giving preference to eggplants, and then even tomatoes. My best guess might be that something similar is happening to you.
 
True, it could be a Striped Potato Beetle...but the pic is too blurry. :D

Whatever it is, it's hungry enough to go after other fare than its usual preference :(.
 
ohiobrewtus said:
Have you tried ripping its wings off? That always entertained me as a kid. :D
Click to expand...

Time to whip out the magnifying glass!

pjj2ba said:
I recall that in Fl, tomatoes, potatoes, etc. are grown as spring crops, before it gets too hot. Are there any of these nearby? My best guess might be that something similar is happening to you.
Click to expand...

We have a square foot garden about 25 feet from the hops that USE to have grape tomatos but we didn't notice pests of any type chewin them.

zoebisch01 said:
but the pic is too blurry. :D
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Yeah, that was the best pic out of like 10 that i took :cross:, trust me, i'd rather take pictures of delicious homebrew instead.

I'm just gonna assume that a cucumber beetle mated with a potato beetle to create a hop-eating biatch...Its hunting season boys :rockin:
 
Either way, inspect the undersides of your leaves for Orange egg masses. Crush them and any of that type of Beetle you find.
 
Correct me if I am wrong... seems like it happens alot.

Seems to me the Beetle is probably there to feed on what ever is chewing on the Hop plant...

My limited experience with gardning in FL is that it is usually either Aphids, Catapillers, or Grasshoppers. If it was the last 2 you would know it. They would make short work of a hop plant.

Bet it is aphids.
http://www.northsaanich.ca/__shared/assets/Aphids1465.pdf
 
Are you taking that pic with a camera phone? Either that or your camera isn't focused well (put it on a tripod or at least put your hand on a steady surface). Most cameras (even cheap digitals) have some sort of macro setting that will allow for focusing under 12 inches.

You sure its not a lightning bug? :D
 
ma2brew said:
Ladybug?
They do occur in colors other than red, and they can bite...

ETA: Biting ladybugs link
Click to expand...

I vote yes to ladybug as well.
The USA has been invested with an asian version
that matures to a yellow and black poka dotted
lady bug, and nest in homes on the ceiling corners
throught winter. THey are the only variety that bite...
similar to a ant sting.
 
karbinator said:
I vote yes to ladybug as well.
The USA has been invested with an asian version
that matures to a yellow and black poka dotted
lady bug, and nest in homes on the ceiling corners
throught winter. THey are the only variety that bite...
similar to a ant sting.
Click to expand...

Lady bugs, even asian ones have small antenna. That thing has long antenna that match up with various leaf beetles.

I made this picture up for everyone saying its an "Asian Ladybug"

rsag5h.jpg
 
Funny that you found the bottom-right picture, that's where I'm at, and was just thinking of taking the pic from the OP over to the dept of Entomology to ask them to ID it. :D
 
Seeing Taipan's pics, it looks to be a dead ringer for the cucumber beetle to me, but mother nature has a way of making things mimic other things that always "throws a spanner in the works"...
 
Look slike what we called a potato bug when I was a kid. An online search tells me that we were wrong, and it should be called a potato beetle, as the potato bug is also known as a jerusalem cricket.

At any rate, a better picture would be nice, if you could get a "macro" shot even better. But what I could tell from that pic it looks like a potato beetle, or maybe false potato beetle, but not as much as the real one.
 
I think that they only truly safe thing for you to do is to dig up your rhizomes and send them to me so that the little vermin can not continue to feed on them.
 
I might try to get another pic before the slaughter.

rabidgerbil said:
I think that they only truly safe thing for you to do is to dig up your rhizomes and send them to me so that the little vermin can not continue to feed on them.
Click to expand...

You know, that was exactly what i was going to do :D, but instead of a rhizome...how about some steamy manure, fresh from my 2-yr old :cross:
 

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