That webbing is very distinctive of mealies. I've just recently had a few go-rounds with soil-mealies, and the best advice was to just throw everything away and start over after disinfecting and treating to kill the beasties in the area where you grow your plant. That said, I can also empathize with wanting to keep a plant for sentimental reasons. With foliar mealy bugs, getting rid of them is very very difficult because they lay their eggs in hard-to-treat areas of the plant. If you really want to save the plant, you'll want to get a strong bug-killer (work with it outside) with pyrethren or malathion. Treat the entire plant by submerging it. You'll want to repeat this one or 2 more time at least a week apart. The other way you can go about saving the plant is to clone it from a leaf cutting and treating the leaf cutting with the bug-killing chemicals. I'm sure there are other ways to go about killing mealies or controlling their populations, but this method I know works reasonably well.

Jean, yes, inspect ALL your plants.. It's the crawlers, (babies) that are hard to find.. That's the reason it's important to spray all parts of your Agave/s. Leaves/stems, etc. I think Baby Wipes contain Rubbing Alcohol, right? It's been a long time, lol. If it does, alcohol will help somewhat, but Jean, to rid those suckers, literal suckers, you better get to work. Clean and inspect daily until you get hold of Bayer or whatever you choose to use. They multiply fast. Are these guys hard-shelled? Yuck, plant bugs are gross looking, especially when magnified. I read an article that explained how eggs are in waiting, during winter months, then when climate is 'just right' they come out of hiding. Hatch. As much as I dislike Scale, IMO, they're easier to rid than Mealy.. I purchased an Olive tree from an online nursery. I ordered from this place several times, and never ever found insects, but there's always that first time, you know? The olive tree arrived. I set it beside a group of citrus and other tropicals. (BTW, it was winter, days cloudy, and my eyes aren't what they used to be.) I can't recall how many days later, while misting, I spotted a brown lump on a leaf..then another and another. Jean, I wanted to cry..there were hundreds of scales..truly that many and more. Then, I looked at citrus neighboring the olive..all branches growing nearest the Olive had loaded..which is one advantage..scale move slower than say, mites. What do you do with a hundred scale? Hand-pick each? What? Earlier in that summer I spoke with a woman in Fl who owns a citrus nursery. She's the person who told me they use Fish Emulsion as a scale preventative and insecticide. I phoned her, explained the situation, asked the portion of FE to water. She gave me the recepie, and it worked! Talk about grateful. One thing that bothered and still troubles me to this day. The olive was delivered in winter. It was very cold outside. Yet, the cold didn't bother or kill the scale. This was pre-heat-pack days..the cold didn't bother the tree either, so I don't have an answer. The olive is alive and well to this day. So are the citrus. So, IMO, scale aren't terribly destructive IF something is done, but if left to live, bye-bye plant.Good luck, Jean, Toni

We here in North Western Virginia were overwhelmed by these little (explitive) stink bugs last summer. They destroyed the local apple crop, corn, tomatoes and more. And by the sheer number of "tick-like" babies I saw, this growing season will be a huge challenge. I have attended several lectures sponsored by the local Agriculture Extension folks who admit they do not have a solution in site. With that in mind I am considering some kind of netting for my tomatoes in particular. The stink bugs do not seem to assault greens, onions, leeks, beets etc. I hope to find the proper netting and secure it to heavy duty tomato trellis' with clothes pins. I realize this will be a bit of a hassle when harvesting but that's got to be better than watching the tomato crop destoyed at the height of the season.... it's heart breaking. I'm going to Wal-Mart to check out the "tulle netting" suggested by "noinwi".

Thanks guys, I will indeed check out the links you offered. One of the farm service companies here is advertising a Bausch & Lomb 20x for something like 18.00 and from some of the few prices I have seen so far this might be a nice deal. Cathy, I just had a mental vision of myself with those over-the-head lenses on...maybe that's a cheaper cure for my astigmatism?? At least then I could pluck my own eyebrows a bit more efficiently!