Olpea, thanks for responding. I have two mini peach trees left to re-pot and I was on the border to use potting soil for the last two or use up the (expensive) gritty mix on them. All other things being equal (the other *primary* pro's/con's that don't revolve around pest management), and since the trunk of these remain so small that a bad case of PTB may cause permanent damage, I was hoping the gritty mix would have a distinct advantage for borers. I don't know much about borers, but was my interpretation of the text correct: at specific stages in PTB they are forced to enter the soil to cocoon? If so, I would assume the magget looking worms would not take to the DE very well. If nobody can provide insight, I guess I won't know unless I harvest and test them myself ;-) I do paint the trunks and I don't have any hesitation to using pesticide to protect these little trees. Thanks for the advice, I always appreciate it when someone takes the time to respond even if they aren't sure of the answer. Peace.

Thanks everyone Based on Scott's msg and Brenda's CMM pictures I don't think CMM fits the bill, so it could be the Fungus fly larvae. If so is it safe to treat ponds with pest specific nematodes? I'm thinking I should go with letting nature take its course. Would letting more sun in help? The pond design advice is so inconsistent (from full sun to partial shade). Thanks David

Bees become fixated, when a nectar source opens, the bees concentrate on that source, becoming fixed on that and little else until the bloom period for that plant is over. If your blossoms open a few days after your neighbor’s blossoms, by the time your neighbor’s blossoms have finished, your blossoms are half over, and old blossoms do not pollinate well, if at all. If your statement were true, nothing in my back yard except the orange tree and then the queen's wreath would be pollinated, because blooms are prolific and bloom periods overlap. A certain proportion of the bees, the foragers, are always looking for the next good spot and recruiting other bees to come harvest what they have discovered. I have watched bees go from the creosote in full bloom to the bok choi blossoms a few feet away, and from the orange blossoms to the alyssum to the tomatillos. Those are foragers ... the ones waddling from orange blossom to orange blossom are the gatherers. On any given collection run a gatherer bee usually stays with a certain kind of flower, but a forager's "waggle dance" can recruit that bee to a different resource for the next run.

Congrats! This is my 2nd year with BSTs and they are fun raise. I keep the cats in large clear plastic salad boxes, and after they "purge", put them into a 10 gallon glass aquarium with a metal screen top. I cut leafy sticks and put them in the aquarium and they usually pupate on a stick under the leaves. I've tried sticks without leaves, but they seem to greatly prefer leaves. The aquarium is also where the Monarchs eclose. Last year, all the BSTs eclosed except for 2 which I kept in the aquarium in the garage all winter, spritzing them with water 1x per week or so. One of the chrysalises rotted; the other looks normal, but still hasn't eclosed yet. I'm not sure if it will, but leave it there for now. I would not cut off the flowers from your Fennel. Despite the wasps, I've noticed that the BST female seems to prefer to lay eggs in the umbels of flowers or seeds. I've collected 10 eggs or small cats this year so far, and they've all been in the flower heads.