Deterrent & death for Vine Weevils.

I'll tolerate all insects in my garden, even slugs & snails but when it comes to vine weevils, then it's a different matter.

Two questions.

1) Would copper slug and snail tape around my Alpine troughs stop vine weevils from climbing up to lay their eggs? Or would they need to have wet feet for it to be effective?

2) Would Ant Killer Powder sprinkled around the base of the troughs kill vine weevils on their nocturnal ramblings?

The answer to No.1 is probably no but No. 2's solution may be effective. I don't know. Anyone know?

 

Hi Kindredspirit,

Personally I use Provado Vine Weevil killer. I don't think anything else would work.
It's expensive as an initial outlay ( I paid £9 from Wilkinsons ), but it lasts a while as you dilute it.
You water the ground around the plants and it kills the beetles and any grubs there may be. Each watering lasts upto 4 months.

Also as a bonus, because the plant drinks it up, anything that bites the plant ( even greenfly etc ) dies.

 

Including bees when they eat the pollen!

 

You could try nematodes.

 

But the bees don't actually bite into the plant do they ?

 

No, but the neo-nicotinoid poison gets into the pollen as well as all other parts of the plant, making it damaging to bees.

 

What seems to be working with me is begonia (tuberous) in pots in different parts of the garden , and in the Autumn all the compost gets thrown away , I call them "bait pots" and I use multipurpose compost and the vine weevils hopfully lay most of the eggs in the pots , I use a 10 % bleach solution when keeping the begonias and they get dipped in that then air dried in the greenhouse I am seeing less and less each year

 

I once dropped a vine weevil adult into pure bleach. It swam about for hours.
There is a new treatment for Vine Weevil for professional growers. It is a fungus which infects and kills the grubs. Trouble is it is very expensive and the shelf life of the product is low. You would need to treat a huge number of plants to make it worthwhile. However, the fungus is persistent on the roots of any treated plant, so in theory, it should carry on infecting grubs even when repotted by the home gardener. We can but hope!

 

Thanks for this comment, I hadn't read anything before about it being harmful to any other creature, I have been asking around a lot and people are saying it only affects soil dwellers, but I want to be sure it won't affect bees and the like, otherwise I should try Nemasys nematodes, and hopefully they are absolutely specific to vine weevils.

 

What about anything that eats the greenfly that bites the plant? Ladybird and lacewing larvae? Or anything that eats the pollen or nectar like bees?

 

Provado is the only thing I've found works. It does for lily beetles as well. The volume of bees in my garden, would suggest it's not a apis killer. Of course I could be wrong and have had a hand in wiping out the entire population of sussex bees

 

the provado pesticide goes in to the pollen and nectar, so not good for bees

 

Find me another product as efficient as provado that doesn't have collateral damage and I'll stop the apian genocide