By Tim King
Painted Lady butterflies usually are a colorful treat for the eyes in the late summer or early fall. Last summer there was an explosion of them not only here in Central Minnesota but across the upper Midwest. Here, on our gravel township road there were clouds of them gathering moisture and minerals from the damp road. There were so many of them that as we drove slowly through orange and black clouds we could hear their wings.
In mid-summer we spotted a couple of unusual caterpillars in our field of vegetables. Excluding Colorado Potato Beetles and Cabbage Butterfly larva, we generally welcome insects into our fields. We value and enjoy the diversity they bring to our field and lives. So, we just enjoyed the worms and went on with our work.
About the same time we spotted the unusual caterpillars we started hearing an aerial spray plane a mile or so away. The thing was out almost every day through August and into September. Sometime during that period I was talking to a friend whose family farms in nearby Morrison County. They were aerial spraying their soy beans almost daily for an insect that they hadn't had problems with before.
"The butterflies are really pretty but the worms are hard on the soy beans," she said.
She then described the Painted Lady butterfly as "the really pretty" butterfly.
It's hard to say how many gallons of insecticide were dumped on the Painted Lady larva but it was a lot. Never-the-less, there were beautiful clouds of them throughout the area.
There are a lot of honey bee colonies here in Todd County as well as in Morrison County. The bees forage in many areas that border or are near soy bean fields. This year bee losses were heavy for at least one large Central Minnesota bee keeper. He told us that he lost about seventy-percent of his bees and, as a result, is considering quitting the business.
This is speculative, but could the extensive spraying in the soy beans have caused the higher then usual bee die off?
Here are two articles documenting last summer's plethora of Painted Ladies and the soy bean industry response.
http://www.omaha.com/living/butterfly-boom-painted-ladies-by-the-hundreds-likely-to-benefit/article_da4423fc-94bb-11e7-88a1-4bd512485f1f.html
https://cropwatch.unl.edu/2017/large-populations-painted-lady-butterflies
Painted Lady butterflies usually are a colorful treat for the eyes in the late summer or early fall. Last summer there was an explosion of them not only here in Central Minnesota but across the upper Midwest. Here, on our gravel township road there were clouds of them gathering moisture and minerals from the damp road. There were so many of them that as we drove slowly through orange and black clouds we could hear their wings.
In mid-summer we spotted a couple of unusual caterpillars in our field of vegetables. Excluding Colorado Potato Beetles and Cabbage Butterfly larva, we generally welcome insects into our fields. We value and enjoy the diversity they bring to our field and lives. So, we just enjoyed the worms and went on with our work.
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| This Painted Lady was photographed by Sue Farmer late summer 2017 It's feeding on nectar from a Blazing Star in Lindberg State Park in Morrison County |
About the same time we spotted the unusual caterpillars we started hearing an aerial spray plane a mile or so away. The thing was out almost every day through August and into September. Sometime during that period I was talking to a friend whose family farms in nearby Morrison County. They were aerial spraying their soy beans almost daily for an insect that they hadn't had problems with before.
"The butterflies are really pretty but the worms are hard on the soy beans," she said.
She then described the Painted Lady butterfly as "the really pretty" butterfly.
It's hard to say how many gallons of insecticide were dumped on the Painted Lady larva but it was a lot. Never-the-less, there were beautiful clouds of them throughout the area.
There are a lot of honey bee colonies here in Todd County as well as in Morrison County. The bees forage in many areas that border or are near soy bean fields. This year bee losses were heavy for at least one large Central Minnesota bee keeper. He told us that he lost about seventy-percent of his bees and, as a result, is considering quitting the business.
This is speculative, but could the extensive spraying in the soy beans have caused the higher then usual bee die off?
Here are two articles documenting last summer's plethora of Painted Ladies and the soy bean industry response.
http://www.omaha.com/living/butterfly-boom-painted-ladies-by-the-hundreds-likely-to-benefit/article_da4423fc-94bb-11e7-88a1-4bd512485f1f.html
https://cropwatch.unl.edu/2017/large-populations-painted-lady-butterflies
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