How they hide
Mealybugs
look like tiny cotton puffs in crevices and branch joints
Scale
hard shells that read as bumps on stems and leaf undersides
Males
tiny flies; adult females stay put under wax or armor
Soil line
both can colonize the stem right where it meets the roots
Plant cost
Sap
they drain juices and weaken the plant
Honeydew
leftover sugar grows sooty mold if ants do not harvest it
Ants
some species herd them the same way they herd aphids
Disease
both groups can move pathogens plant to plant
Life cycle
Eggs
a female may shelter 200 to 1000 eggs on or under her body
Crawl
nymphs smaller than 1 mm spread, then females settle and males grow wings
Time
a generation takes about 1 to 2 months, one to six generations a year by species
Cannabis
Rosenthal says the plant’s open structure makes mealybugs easier to wipe than on many ornamentals
Removal
Swab
Aromaisopropyl on a cotton swab reaches crevices
Limonene
Aromacontact products that kill mealybugs and scale
Oils and soap
Beetles
AromaCryptolaemus (mealybug destroyer) and Ryzobius on soft scale