Discussions

I have lived in my area for 5 years and have never seen so much sticky stuff coming off the trees! What is it? Sap?? It is all over everything! Cars, yard..... it's so bad on the street that you can hear it picking up stones on your tires as you drive. Anyone know what it is and why it's so bad this year??

Aphid poop

It is aphid crap. Obviously is it a bad aphid year. Not sure what makes them breed worse one year than another, or what eats them.  
 
It was a happy day for us was when the neighbors took down their two old manitoba maples - aphids love them. So it you have MB Maples where you park, that will be why the cars are so covered this year.  
 
Can't be dragon flies that eats them, given the huge amount of them around this year. On the plus side, no mosquitos.....

Ladybugs or lacewings are needed to eradicate the aphids. They can be ordered online. I'm considering ordering ladybugs, I'm tired of this sticky crap (literally, lol) all over EVERYTHING.

I'm skeptical about it being aphid poop. The streets and cars are completely covered in it. That would take billions of aphids per tree to do that I would think.

JD said "I'm skeptical about it being aphid poop. The streets and cars are completely covered in it. That would take billions of aphids per tree to do that I would think. "

It's aphids. We have a pool and there are thousands of aphids dead in it every morning. There is literally a layer of them every morning. We've never had this in previous years. We have no trees, but vehicle is covered in this stuff every morning. All my plants are covered in it too. I've personally never seen so many aphids as this year. We walk outside and we are covered in them. Even all the spider webs in the yard are visible as they are full of aphids stuck in them. Crazy!

Aphids reproduce at a higher rate then any other insect, a single aphid can produce 6 billion offspring in a season. They are called the pigs of the insect world, constantly eating the sugar from the leaves and pooping out a sweet sticky mess called honeydew. From what I understand the conditions this year are favourable for a "plague" of them...a mild winter reduced the amount of winter kill and hot, humid weather and a lack of normal predators are causing an abundance of them this year.

Elm trees are bad for sticky stuff too. Don't know what the sticky stuff was but I hated parking under elms.

"Ladybugs or lacewings are needed to eradicate the aphids. They can be ordered online. I'm considering ordering ladybugs, I'm tired of this sticky crap (literally, lol) all over EVERYTHING. "  
 
"Ladybugs" bought in bulk are usually Asian Lady Beetles, a related species, invasive, aggressive and harmful to our native ladybug population. Not your gentle ladybug. They bite and stink.  
 
"Stinky littles monsters" is how my relative refers to them since they invaded her home three years ago. They like to swarm and to winter in walls. They stink terrible when you smuck-em. Did I mention that they like to swarm?  
 
The best remedy, she's found, is to just keep the vacuum out 24/7 and suck them up off the windows three or four time a day.  
 
The little monsters were originally imported into U.S. to control aphids in commercial crops, but have since 'gone native' and are spreading on their own, out-competing all of the 20 or 30 local and native ladybug species. They taste and stink so bad that they have no natural North American enemies and apparently they harbor a malicious fungus that our local bags have no resistance to.

Are they also responsible for the garbage smell in the university area? Everywhere I walk near the uni, valleyview, Vincent Massey, the smell is horrific. It smells like garbage. I've been downtown and don't smell it there. Only around this neighbourhood and on streets with lots of trees.

Thanks for the info...I had no idea that they weren't the cute little ladybugs that I'm used to. What you described sounds horrible and worse then the aphids. I definitely won't be getting them now. I was going to get them from Costco.ca, not sure if they are selling what you described , but not going to take the chance. I'll just put up with the aphids for the rest of this season and hope next summer is better

tent worms and now these guys, never a boring summer here when it comes to bugs! At least no mosquitoes

Lol

http://bdnmb.ca/tree-sap-think-again/

I'm pretty sure my yard has a lot of Asian lady beetles. I'm not sure where they came from but they are covering areas around my trees in the back and my shed. They kind of just showed up one day.