Q: My milkweed seed pods have clusters of bugs on them that are orange and black. What are they, and what should I do about them?

A: Based on your description and the fact that it’s late summer, it sounds like what you’re seeing on your plants are milkweed bugs, which are native to the United States.

These insects gather in clusters on several species of milkweeds in mid to late summer and into the fall but have a rather short lifespan. They usually feed on sap from stems, leaves, seedpods and seeds of various milkweed species using their piercing-sucking mouthparts. Like monarch caterpillars, milkweed bugs become toxic to predators by accumulating alkaloids from the milkweed plants in their bodies.

The good news is that milkweed bugs don’t tend to cause significant damage to plants. Th

See Full Page