I had always been under the impression that the red lily beetle wasn't winter hardy in our zone, but the Manitoba Regional Lily Society claims it's a problem in parts of Winnipeg now so who knows.

Honestly I think this time of year you would be seeing the poo-coated juveniles snacking on the leaves. A single hole in a bud doesn't sound like a lily beetle attack. I would put on gardening gloves and cut it open to be sure though.

The lily beetle is alive and kicking in the Calgary area. I was already battling them last year, and this year they are again proving to be very destructive. In my experience the beetles do not go all the way to the top of the plant without chewing up the leaves from the bottom up first. So I don't think your problem is the lily beetle.

Since the lily beetle is alive in Manitoba and Alberta I don't see how it would have skipped Saskatchewan. I think that some areas have more trouble than others though. In my garden only one of my lily areas have the lily beetle and not the other. Go figure? I have been dilligently picking and drowning both the adults when they first appeared and now the disgusting slug looking young ones. I hope you never get them.

The Pine Siskin bird goes after my lilies - they have beaks as sharp as a needle and drill holes into the buds ... why, I don't know, but I've watched them doing it.

I had them at my old house. They're tricky little buggers. If you move the leaf they tend to drop down into the ground, upside down so that they're concealed.

What you can do is put some paper on the ground under the lilies, then shake them. Throw them into soapy water. The larvae wrap themselves in their own fecal matter to protect themselves. You can scrape those off.

I dearly want to grow lilies again, but they're far too much maintenance with the beetle around.

I checked my lilies again today.

There is no evidence of red lily beetle damage. I checked Wikipedia and I don't see anything that looks like any of the lily beetle stages.

The only thing I found was what looked like black poop on a few leaves last night and today it's either gone or turned to orange almost chalky stuff. Still in a blob though.

Whatever ate the hole in the bud went in there, ate the soon to emerge flower, and left. The bud was completely empty. No web, no nothing. Then it did it to another bud by this morning.

Any more thoughts or ideas? Should I just hope whatever did this has moved on? I thought of asking on the Lily Forum, but I think most people there are in warmer climates and have different pests (??)

That black poop is the larva of the red lily beetle.

could it be earwigs?

I've put up quite a few birdhouses in my garden. When I see a red beetle, tomato hornworm or any other insect (this only works for crawlers), I just knock it to the ground and let the birds feast. So far, between doing this and working the soil around the plant to expose eggs, I have only seen 1 beetle this year. Earwigs seem to be plentiful this year. I have them chewing the flowers on lots of plants. They could very well be the culpret. I don't think even the birds like them!

We don't get earwigs on the prairies. I've heard they're bad out east this year though. Anyone else in SK or AB want to correct me but the only time I've ever seen an earwig was when one jumped out of a pomegranate I bought.

Well, I checked my lilies today and there's been no further damage. I have my fingers crossed.

BTW I've never seen an earwig in my yard in Saskatchewan, but I'm not positive whether we have them or not. I don't think we do. We had tons on the West Coast.

Marric - Tomato Hornworm - I don't think we get them either, at least when I looked it up on the internet, I didn't recognize them. Maybe I've just been lucky so far ?

Prairies do have earwigs, but they don't seem to wreak havoc like in the east.