Because these suckers (literally) can be seen dining on mulberries now, other fruit later on, etc. leading up to their assault on pomegranates, they have no reason to either die or fly elsewhere. Citrus may be one of the only fruit growing here that they don’t suck on and spread thriving fungi that are lining their syringes. Talk about using dirty needles. Every black spot on every infected pom likely started as a L. F.H. meal. When a fresh batch of newborns emerge, they are very orange and cluster together, which is a great time to spray them all with your favorite soapy mix to kill them all in a minute. Because Assassin bugs also are orange and somewhat similarly shaped, only spray the clusters. Same-sized Assassin bugs are already scattered about on different twigs waiting for a meal to come by rather than hang out in a cluster on top of a fruit like the baby L.F.H.'s. It sure does take more than a single squirt of soapy mix to bring down the mature, large, gray adults though. After they get sprayed once they start flying away quickly and may avoid getting saturated thoroughly so as to bring them down. This year will be my first trying a few kinds of bagging ideas on valued poms.
