Garden Insects In Winter.
December 28th, 2007
Filed in Garden Pests and Diseases
Tags: pests, repellents, winter
Many people ask me how do most insects manage to live through the winter in cold or freezing sections of the country?
A few garden bugs are able to migrate to warmer climates, but most of these cold-bloodied creatures must adjust to freezing temperatures -or die. Specially endowed insects like the cinch bug produce an anti-freeze chemical that keeps their insides from turning to ice. Others calmly freeze without injury and await the spring
thaw (who doesn’t)!
On the other hand, the Cecropia silkworm moth, spins a Thermopane-type cocoon that traps air between
double walls for maximum insulation. Some insects dig down below the frost line and sleep away the winter, where the soil is a constant 5 degrees centigrade.
Insects sense the approach of winter with a built-in “clock” geared to the seasonal variations in darkness and light. Known as photoperiodism, the phenomenon serves insects as a vital early-warning system.
Long before winter, for example, the female grasshopper buries a mass of eggs wrapped in a gluelike jacket. Warmth will not hatch the eggs unless they have first been frozen–nature’s way of making sure a late warm
spell in autumn won’t bring out baby grasshoppers to starve.
In autumn, winged ants and ladybird beetles in California fly up into the mountains to spend the winter huddled
by tens of thousands in wingless aeries.
Many mosquitoes pass the winter as larvae, content to be frozen in ponds. When spring comes they thaw out and after metamorphosis, buzz off.
Probably the most coddled of all wintering bugs is the corn-root aphid. Its eggs are carefully collected by a species of ant and carried to nests below the frost line. In spring the eggs are taken to the roots of early weeds to hatch.
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