Speedster1. Just wanted to say that this a great post and I hope many others will add there insects/disease to it. This can be a special resource as we have issues in our orchards. Bill
Not sure what that is danzeb but he looks pretty cool. Can’t imagine him being a bad guy. Has a predator look to him. Maybe someone else will know
Be careful the other day I was getting some frames out of a bee hive to use for a hive that will pollinate my fruit trees and saw two black widows. One was alive and the other dead. That’s the first black widow I saw since I was a child. These last several mild winters we have had in Kansas has the black widow population increasing http://www.kake.com/home/headlines/Black-Widow-Population-Booming-In-Kansas-198389191.html. The brown recluse is much more common here and less harmful but not something you want to be bitten by Brown Recluse
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That’s interesting, I had a bee hive die out in the winter a few years ago and in the early summer I took it apart to put it up and it had a big black widow living in the frames. No doubt about the id on one of those when they are hanging upside down from a frame. We have lots of brown recluse here also. I keep sticky traps out in our house year around and it really keeps them killed out. My grandad had an orchard near delta Colorado in the fifties. They would ship apples out in marked wooden Apple boxes to other states for sale. Then the retailer would ship the wooden boxes back. When he was unloading a batch of returned boxes from Missouri he got bit on the stomach by a brown recluse. I guess it made a pretty ugly wound before it healed.
Jason,
As your aware the recluse and widow both love the dark but I was not expecting to almost stick my hand down on one when I opened that hive. A black widow doesn’t like it indoors but they sure do love bee hives apparently since you had the same experience. Heard they like sheds etc as well as long as there is some protection, are dark, but still outside. Brown recluse likes it inside when they can inside someone’s basement, spare room etc…
I killed 74 black widows (I keep a tally) on my quarter acre last year. A few days ago my 4 year old pointed to something on our sliding door and said “daddy, I think that’s a black widow.” It was. It was making a web about four inches from my outdoor shoes. That coulda gone a different way 
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Thankfully it went the way of it not making a home in your shoes.
Hmm, to my nursing knowledge, and having both out here in S. California, the bite from the Brown Recluse can be as bad as that of the Black Widow spider, from different actions. You are much more likely to lose a limb from a Brown Recluse bite, you’re more likely to suffer neurological sequelae from a Black Widow bite. You’re also much more likely to be bit by a Black Widow, versus a Brown Recluse, due to the different natures of both spiders, one being rather aggressive (Black Widow), the other being, well, reclusive. The venoms from both spiders are very different. Black Widow venom is a neurotoxin. Brown Recluse venom (more poisonous than rattlesnake venom gram for gram, fortunately, they cannot inject much with the bite), is a necro-toxin. Both of course you want to avoid, but don’t think one is “less harmful” than the other. Sort of like comparing a gun versus a knife 
I’ve included a link at the end of my post, but if you have a queasy stomach, you might not want to view these slides. It will give you an idea of what can happen to an adult with a Brown Recluse bite. One of my horseback riding friends many years ago sustained a Brown Recluse bite on her hand, when she reached in to grab one of her horse’s saddle blankets that was hanging on a hook in her tack room. Both spiders like to live up inside the folds of fabric. I won’t share how she fared - she survived, but her injuries were horrible and life-changing. Children, the elderly and those who are immuno-compromised will fare the worst from either bite, but fatalities from Black Widow bites (very rare, but they can happen) tend to fall within those three groups of patients. More fatalities with Black Widow bites due to two reasons: Type of venom and # of bites in comparison to Brown Recluse bites:
And Ryan, your story reminds me of a story about my husband: He put his barn shoes on and felt something squishy in the toe. He pulled his foot (with a thick sock on, thank goodness) out of the shoe and out came a smashed Black Widow spider that had apparently crawled into the toe of his boot overnight. Needless to say, he kept his barn shoes inside after that, and would shake them out vigorously prior to putting them on. We still do that, as well as smash our garden gloves flat prior to sticking our hands and fingers in them (Yup, smashed a Black Widow in one of my gloves many years ago). Got that tip from a friend of mine.
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Those brown recluse bite pictures are… Special. You nurses with your stomachs of steel!
I’ve started stepping on my garden shoes thoroughly before putting them on, glad to see that’s a trick other people use too!
I’m fairly certain I was bitten by a black widow back in my college days. I was drinking in a bar and ended up climbing around in a shed they had out back. Something bit my arm, and the next morning I was sick. I attributed it to being hungover. After four days of dizziness, nausea, and not being able to keep anything down I went to the doctor. My bite had progressed to a silver dollarish spot of necrotized skin… Good ol’ college.
Gosh, yes. sure sounds like it. Those are the symptoms of a Black Widow bite. Good thing about being young and vigorous.
I hope you guy can help to identify sour cherry and possibly the other stone fruit disease.
I grafted sour cherry scions received from ARS this spring. After I received them I put them in 10% bleach for 10 min and then kept them in refrigerator. They looked good. After they were grafted they failed to thrive. They stayed with the green swollen buds for a long time. Then some of them had flowers, but they did not push leaves and they looked alive but stunted. The sour cherries from the other sources which were grafted later outgrew the ones I received from ARS. I started to think that something is wrong with them… The last two days we had plenty of cold rain, everything was soaked. This afternoon I went to look at the grafts and I saw that the young shoots below the grafts had dead leaves, some shoots were dying too, starting from the tip. It looked like the water was running from the grafts to the new growth below spreading the disease. All ARS grafts had necrotic leaves below them. Here are the pictures.
Is it brown rot? If so, beware, the ARS cherry scions spread it.
It’s to early to say but it could be Blossom Blast http://msue.anr.msu.edu/news/bacterial_canker_ice_nucleation_frost_injury_and_blossom_blast_in_sweet_che
Thank you, Clark. But we had no freezing temperature the last two days, the night lows were 44 F. Just a lot of rain. It is probably something else…
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We have another thread on this forum
http://growingfruit.org/t/apricot-issue-verticillium-wilt
Which is mentioning Moniliose (Brown rot or twig blight). As soon as it gets drier I’ll spray the threes. Is anybody know how to fight it?
When I was dumping my potting mix out of my 10 gallon root pouches last fall I almost put my hand down right on top of a black widow. 2 days later my dad was helping me finish and found two more. I could feel phantom creepy crawlies for the rest of the day. Nothing gives me the heebie heebie like spiders.
Absolutely black widows are dangerous. I bet that did make you feel like that.
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Here is damage caused by locust leaf miners. the only fruit I’ve seen them on are my apples. Akane and Williams Pride to be specific. I’ve crushed 4 or 5 of them.
