I totally agree about the skeeters! I was out watering my front flower beds a wekk or so ago and I know I looked like some freak swatting all around me with the hose flaying around!

Kath
not a skeeter fan

I have been amazed here, 6 or 8 hundred miles to the north of CO, that the bugs have been fairly limited this year. There were exceptions.

The flea beetles attacked the brassicas with real vengence, early on. I was unable to deal with their numbers and they made a mess of the radishes, especially.

The red spider mites were slow in getting started in the dahlias. They are out there now and have begun to cause serious damage. I've started hosing down the plants with water before spraying them with insecticide. That has really helped in the past and I'm optimistic. (You need to wait for the plants (& mites) to dry before spraying.)

The red spiders are also on the sunflowers and finishing off the 1st planting of beans. I think beans must be their favorite food. They always swarm the aging bean plants.

Forever, I've heard people say that a cold Winter suppresses the bugs but we didn't have a cold Winter. Instead, we had a cold Spring. That may have done far more to suppress bugs than some additional days of subzero weather in January could have.

digitS'

It must be a case of "location location, location."

I usually set out the yellow jacket traps in June and empty them as often as daily. The past few years, I've been using the 10 week attractant and this year the first one was almost finished before I had to empty the traps. I've been emptying them once every week or two since.

Not that I'm complaining.

Bug report for the Western Slope:

Mosquitos - Definitely worse this year. Last year, they were horrible in August, but I don't remember getting bit much at all before then. This year, they were eating us alive at the ballparks by June.

Grasshoppers - Plague status. When you walked through the empty lots around us in June, it looked like a parting of the Red Sea. Thankfully, the numbers have dropped significantly since the praying mantis population is mature enough to eat them in large numbers.

Bees - Plenty of them, but the paper wasp/yellow jackets seemed to show up later this year. Lots of honeybees, bumblebees, and leafcutter bees too!

Bonnie

All around the county here, everyone is complaining about the grasshoppers - what Bonnie is talking about, strip trees and such. I have some, but nothing like what folks 10 miles away have. We have a new wasp around, some sort of European paper wasp, that doesn't just build on the under-hanging eaves, but just about everywhere it feels like it - like on stalks out in the corn fields, in the middle of my clematis vines, and under the out door chair.

One tomato horn worm all season. Usually get several dozen.

But boy, do I have sod web worms. Bazillions and bazillions eating my lawn.