It’s a bumper crop this year of....Love Bugs!

[A930Rocket]

I can’t believe the amount of love bugs this year. They are everywhere and trying to get in our homes. They seem to congregate at the smallest possible opening at the door. Do they sence the cool air and want in? Once in, they just sit around, not moving much.

Driving down from Charleston to Bluffton around 11 this morning, I went through a fog of love bugs so thick, it was like black rain that splattered all over the front and windshield of my truck.

Anyone else seeing them?

[red-beard]

Just started seeing them. No clouds yet...

[Evans, Marv]

The south must have a lot of bugs. On a family vacation into Alabama to see relatives, we had the whole front of the car splattered with bugs. It was so bad we had to stop and clean the windshield. There were even streamers of dead bugs streaming from the antenna. They seemed to be mostly dragon flies.

[IROC]

I raced at Sebring last year (around September 20th). The love bugs were thick!! We had to clean the windshield every pit stop. Being from Tennessee, I was not prepared for the onslaught of those things...

[KFC911]

Familiar with 'em from my daze in Jax...don't let them linger on paint .

[astrochex]

We had them bad a few months back. Wash them off ASAP.

I was getting good results with scruffy sponge (dishwasher type for abrasion) and bug/tar remover. Its amazing how hard the bug goo can be. Pressure washing is supposed to work well also.

[MBAtarga]

I thought they were proliferating in May?

[red-beard]

I usually see them around here in September.

And your car/truck smells like a swamp!

[masraum]

Originally Posted by A930Rocket

I can’t believe the amount of love bugs this year. They are everywhere and trying to get in our homes. They seem to congregate at the smallest possible opening at the door. Do they fell the cool air and want in? Once in, they just sit around, not moving much.

Driving down from Charleston to Bluffton around 11 this morning, I went through a fog of love bugs so thick, it was like black rain that splattered all over the front and windshield of my truck.

Anyone else seeing them?

Bah! That's not love bugs!

The bugs spread across the state. By the late ’60s and early ’70s, there were so many lovebugs that it could be dangerous to drive during the day, said Dr. Norman Leppla, a professor in the University of Florida’s Department of Entomology and Nematology.

You’d have to pull off the interstate every 10 miles just to wipe the paste of guts from your windshield, or else you wouldn’t be able to see where you were going.

“Many service stations charge up to 75 cents to remove a lovebug incrustation if that motorist doesn’t buy at least 10 gallons of gasoline,” said a 1972 article in the St. Petersburg Times.

Forget about lemonade stands. Children used to stand along the highway offering lovebug cleaning services for a dollar.

The state’s Plant Industry Division took to the skies to solve the problem, spraying insecticides from a helicopter over the highway to kill the bugs. But they quickly came back.

In 1971, the Legislature shot down a bill that would have authorized $25,000 to stop the pests.

Politicians soon realized they’d made a mistake. Just one year later, the state of Florida decided it had enough of lovebugs.

In October 1972, Florida Democratic Rep. William Chappell Jr. testified in Washington, D.C., about the winged horrors his constituents were facing.

“The number of lovebugs in central and northeast Florida has reached mammoth proportions and constitutes an hazardous situation to the motoring public," Chappell told the Agriculture Department. "This epidemic has already affected the tourist trade and the local people are plagued with stopped-up air conditioners and radiators.”

Chappell wasn’t able to get the emergency funds he requested. The state of Florida had to finance the lovebug war on its own. That month, Florida Gov. Reubin Askew and other members of the Florida cabinet ultimately decided to devote $75,000 in state university research funds.

Researchers spent several years focusing on love bugs. By the end of the ’70s, lovebugs were still annoying, but not plentiful enough to be dangerous anymore.

To this day, entomologists still have no idea why the population dwindled, Leppla said.

“Typically, an 'alien invasive species’ like the lovebug arrives, becomes established, reproduces prolifically, and survives in high numbers until it is affected by limiting factors (pathogens, predators, parasites, competitors, host availability, etc.),” he wrote in an email.

Researchers don’t know the habitat limitations of lovebugs. Maybe it was too wet or dry for the larvae to survive? It’s also possible other creatures in nature helped — robins could have developed a taste for love bug larvae, or maybe armadillos found them first.

As the lovebug population decreased, the bugs no longer were a threat to drivers and slipped comfortably into the “nuisance” category. Researchers shifted their priorities to other, more dangerous critters.

“It’s been a decade since we’ve had enough bugs to clog radiators," Leppla said.

[PD41]

When I lived in farm country we had a bug problem.

They will make your ride run hot after they clog up the radiator,
AC condenser, trans cooler behind the grill.

Easy fix; Get some cheap nylon window screen at your local
hardware/Home Depot store, cut to fit, mount outside the grill,
and a few tie wraps and your good to go. Easy to clean with a brush and water.

[Tobra]

That is the one thing I do not miss about Texas. Had a white car the entire time I lived there.

[wdfifteen]

I had never heard of them, had to look it up. Coitus can last several days.

[911 Rod]

What the h#ll is a love bug? All I can think of is Herby smacking off of your hood.

[porsche tech]

They call them that because that's all they do is get it on. They fly around united, tail to tail getting it on 24/7. Played golf at Oldfield yesterday (just north of Bluffton in Oakatie) and have never seen them so thick.

[masraum]

They are REALLY slow moving. Not in a hurry to get anywhere.

[Tobra]

You would not move very fast either if your junk was permanently connected to your girlfriend.

Yeah, you want to wash that off, there is something in their guts that will eat paint.

[Jolly Amaranto]

Originally Posted by red-beard

And your car/truck smells like a swamp!

As does the water/cleaner bin at the gas pump with the window scrubber/squeegee. Man those things get nasty. I wash them off at home so as not to just smear the remains of other folks' bugs on my windshield.

[A930Rocket]

I must have seen thousands of love bugs on the exterior of one house that is finished. The house next door under construction and sided, but not painted did not a single love bug on it.

Once they get it, they hang out and are dead the next morning. Then it starts all over again.

I’m at my friends house 10 minutes from work and not a bug in sight.

Dang! I’m building homes in Oldfield every day. Let me know next time.

Originally Posted by porsche tech

They call them that because that's all they do is get it on. They fly around united, tail to tail getting it on 24/7. Played golf at Oldfield yesterday (just north of Bluffton in Oakatie) and have never seen them so thick.

[A930Rocket]

[A930Rocket]

A google search comes up with a DIY bug spray.

Pour warm water in a spray bottle, add a little citrus dish soap and little bit of mouthwash.

Spray the door weather stripping and it kills them on contact and they don’t come back. 🙌🙌