The borer beetle is an incredibly beautiful insect. The beauty of the wings of the borer attracts artists, designers and photographers. They are used to create jewelry, to decorate clothes and interiors. At the same time, borers are nasty garden pests that have to be de alt with.
Beetle Family
Boletus beetles are an amazing family of insects with bright, shiny, iridescent colors. Their shells shimmer in the sun, which is also very fond of beetles. The shape of these beetles is flat, long, cylindrical. Their legs are short but powerful.
Not all borers have a bright and golden color. There are species with a red, green, bronze tint of the body. Some beetles have spots on their bodies.
Zlatki love the smell of resin, so they settle on freshly cut stumps. The borer prefers more deciduous trees than conifers.
Insects love to move and fly. It is difficult to catch them: they are very fast. Sensing danger, the borer beetle instantly escapes. And if suddenly you managed to overtake him, he pretends to be dead. They have no legs and eyes, and a headdrawn into the chest. The forechest of these larvae is wider than all other parts of the body.
Food of borers
Zlatki - stem pests. They feed on both dead and he althy wood.
Each type of goldfish prefers "its" plant. Sometimes different representatives of beetles settle on parts of the same tree: roots, trunk, branches.
You can identify wood eaten by pests by its appearance. If the gnawed holes are oval in shape, then the gold beetle lives here. Round holes indicate the presence of other insects.
Types of borers
Beetles are divided into three groups: pests of berry species, pests of fruit species and forest pests.
Berry pests:
Narrow-bodied currant beetle - a beetle 8 mm long, oblong in shape, with a copper-green color. Eats various types of currants
Pests of fruits:
- Above in the photo - beetle bicolor ash borer. This is a golden-green beetle 7 mm long. Eats trees such as plum, apricot, peach.
- The narrow-bodied pear beetle is a copper-red beetle. Its size is 1 cm. It eats apple, pear and some forest species: hawthorn and mountain ash.
- Zlatka fruit - a black beetle with white dots 2-4 cm long. Damages plum, almond, apricot and other species. It is also dangerous for barren species: willows, poplars, etc.
- Copper beetle - an oval copper-red beetle up to 3 cm long. It feeds on stone fruits: cherries,apricot.
- Black beetle is the biggest pest of fruit trees. This beetle reaches 3 cm in length. They eat trees such as cherry plum, apricot, plum, cherry, peach, almond.
Pest of both fruit and berry plants:
Smoky beetle - beetle 1-2 cm in size, bronze color. It occurs on berry and fruit crops: on hawthorn, apricot, etc
Forest pests:
The fruit borer (pictured above) and the narrow-bodied pear borer are beetles that eat both fruit and wild forest tree species
Beetle in art
Wings of borers are used for jewelry, decor and even in art. Artist Jan Faber creates paintings and sculptures from the elytra of these insects. First, Faber creates a sketch on canvas, and then lays out a drawing with this natural material.
Jan Faber gets the wings of the borer beetle from Malaysian restaurants where these insects are eaten.
In 2014, Jan Faber opened an exhibition at the PinchukArtCentre in Kyiv. Mosaics and sculptures were displayed there.
The artist created works of art together with his assistants. The entire exhibition took two months. Jan Faber claims that one would have to work for more than two years.
Black borer - garden pest
Black goldfish - beetle 2 cm long, pest of fruit trees. This goldfish is black with white speckles on the wings. The beetle is quite hard: it is difficult to crush it.
Black borer damages fruit trees: apricot, plum, cherry plum, etc. Adults eat the bark, petioles and buds of young trees. The larvae feed on roots. Young trees inhabited by borers are quickly dying.
Fighting the black borer
Don't worry if you have a black borer in your garden. You can fight her. There are several ways:
Proper care. It is important to water young plantings of fruit trees regularly and on time. The roots of trees and shrubs remaining in the soil should be removed when planting, as they may contain black borer larvae. Wild trees (wild cherry plum, wild blackthorn) should not grow near the garden. They must be removed, otherwise they can become a breeding ground for black borer. Proper tillage and fertilization is also important
- Getting rid of chemistry. Tree crowns are treated with organophosphorus compounds. But you need to be careful, as they can be poisonous.
- Manual disposal. You can shake the beetles from the tree, collect and destroy the pests. This method is popular in home gardens.
The borer beetle is both a beautiful insect whose wings are used to create whole canvases and an unpleasant garden pest. It is not difficult to deal with him, the main thing is to notice in time.
