Striped Blister Beetle

This bug arrived in swarms and quickly stripped the leaves off almost all my hot pepper plants. We had planted clover between the rows, which is one of the plants they love the most. In reading about them on line, I discovered that they can be deadly to livestock, especially horses. Alfalfa is another of their favorite plants, so it is wise to check for dead beetles in your hay before feeding to your animals. Even the dead bugs are harmful. The beetles stayed around for about a month. They may have eaten some grasshopper eggs, but we still have a large population of grasshoppers this year. Our weather has been very hot and dry since mid-June. This is the first year we've seen them. We found an organic bug spray (EchoSmart) that worked fairly well to reduce the population. It's ma... read morede of thyme, rosemary, and clove oil and has to be sprayed directly on the bugs to kill them.

while i didnt put out a garden this year due to health reasons i still love gardening and reading up on new ideas. however i still have a problem with the striped blister beetle but they have came in the house we kill many of them each night. are they a threat to small children as we have young grandchildren(crawling age) and as we kill the bugs we clean them up but are still concerned that they may encounter one we dont get!
thanks

I have seen both the striped and gray margined varieties. Someone else mentioned they thought they were worse due to hot dry conditions and I would agree. I have never seen these guys before and am inundated this year. I have found them eating the leaves of: beets, green beans, cantaloupe, and major damage to potatoes and tomatoes. I have been picking them daily which is pretty effective on smaller plants but difficult for the sprawling melons and large bushy caged tomatoes. I have also used organic concentrate neem oil spray applied to the leaves which was very effective for the last week without having to reapply. I tested it out on a few plants and will spray everything else this weekend.

After seeing my healthy tomato plants being devoured and searching for the cause, I found the pest which I identified on line as the striped blister beetle. This is the first year these pests have appeared. They had done much damage to the leaves but the fruit was visibly unharmed. On line sources warned about skin coming in contact with these pests and said the best way to control was to pick them off by hand, with gloves, of course. I was able to gather quite a few and will continue to do so daily. Once spotted, they were fairly easy to catch. My concern now is what pesticide might be effective and how to control them in future growing seasons. Also, I am interested to know if they harm the fruit.

I have some striped blister beetles, and also ash-gray ones, hundreds of them!! They have stripped all of my tomatoes, cucumbers, cantelopes of 95% of their leaves! Several plants have no leaves left. Some damage to zucchinni and beans, even some weeds!
I didn't know what they were, so googled until I found them. Have sprayed a couple of times, with some success, but damage was already done. Have never seem these before, at least not such a damaging infestation. I think I have seen the striped ones before, but in small numbers. Wonder if dry heat (lots of high 90's and 100's and little rain this year) made the situation worse. So far have not found any strategy for prevention, or even a way to predict when they might strike again. I did find several references to how toxic ... read morethey are to animals if eaten (in hay).

Rating this bug is a hard call. while the adult is quite destructive in crop fields, the larvae feed exclusively on grasshopper eggs.

The beetle deposits clutches of up to 100 eggs in the soil and 10 to 21 days later, the larvae hatch and immediately burrow in search of grasshopper eggs. 1 larvae can be responsible for eating up to 30 eggs singlehandedly.

Found from Nova Scotia and Sascatchewan in the north toNorth Carolina to Louisana in the South.