32 THE FLORIDA ENTOMOLOGIST 
avocados, mangoes, sapodillas, palms, many other ornamental 
‘plants in Fort Myers were covered with this insect. The sooty 
mold, growing on the honey dew excreted by the pest, made a 
very unsightly appearance and, of course, the fruit and plants 
were damaged. This species apparently does not have as many 
natural enemies as the common citrus mealybug and is just as 
hard if not harder to control. 
Another species that is beginning to play an important part 
is the Pineapple Mealybug (P. bromeliae) which did quite a bit 
of damage to several pineapple plantings down the east coast 
this year. This pest prefers the pineapple and was probably 
brought to this State several years ago on imported pineapple 
slips. 
The life cycle of a mealybug is short and a female will lay 
from three to five hundred eggs; so if conditions are favorable 
it takes only a short time for them to become very numerous 
regardless of the fact that they have a large number of natural 
enemies. They have insect friends that protect them and aid in 
their multiplication. Several species of ants will carry the 
young mealybugs around and protect them in order that they 
may secure the honeydew secreted by the pest. The most active 
ant along this line is the Argentine ant, which we do not have 
in this State at the present time. 
Owing to the large number of host plants, rotation of crops 
would do very little good in the control of mealybugs. Some of 
the most important natural enemies are some hymenopterous 
parasites, lady beetles and the larvae of syrphid and lace-wing 
flies. 
Mealybugs are covered with a wax-like secretion and the eggs 
are deposited in a mass of this material, so spraying with a 
strong insecticide has very little effect. When the rainy season 
begins, the severe infestations disappear, so spraying with clear 
water under high pressure to wash the insects from the tree has 
been recommended by the best Entomologists for years, but any- 
one who has had much experience spraying for mealybugs knows 
that any kind of solution or pressure gives very poor results. 
Quite recently one of the field men of the Bureau of Ento- 
mology discovered an unnoticeable fungus attacking the mealy- 
bug and when the rainy season began this year this fungus com- 
pletely destroyed the severe infestations in several groves that 
he had under: observation. Personally, I believe their disappear- 
ance during rainy weather is due to this fungus rather than the 
