Grapevines and citrus plants purchased at Costco stores in Vacaville and Fairfield, as well as in Napa and Sonoma counties, have been found to be harboring infestations of glassy-winged sharpshooters, which pose a grave threat to grapevines.

Agricultural officials are on high alert for appearances of glassy-winged sharpshooters, which are large leafhoppers that feed on plant sap, and are related at the suborder level to cicadas. The invasive insects native to northern Mexico were first introduced to Southern California by accident in the 1990s, and they are known to carry and spread a bacterium that causes Pierce’s disease, which can wipe out grapevines.

As the Chronicle reports, officials are telling anyone who may have purchased a citrus plant or grapevine from a Costco location in the North Bay sinceto keep the plants isolated and cover them in garbage bags — and do not attempt to move, plant, or dispose of them.

"Glassy-winged sharpshooters pose a serious and immediate threat to vineyards, agriculture, and backyard plants throughout Solano County and surrounding regions,” says Solano County Agricultural Commissioner Ed King in a countywide alert. "These insects spread the bacterium that causes Pierce’s disease, which can kill grapevines and severely impact vineyards. Community cooperation is critical right now."

Any residents who purchased one of these plants after April 21 is asked to contact county officials so they can come inspect them and potentially destroy them.

Napa County residents are being asked to contact the Napa County Agricultural Commissioner’s Office at 707-253-4357 or agcommissioner@countyofnapa.org. Sonoma County residents should contact the Department of Agriculture/Weights & Measures at 707-565-2371 or Sonomaag@sonomacounty.gov. And Solano County residents can contact the Agriculture Department at 707-784-1310 or AGcomm48@SolanoCounty.gov.

The offending nursery where the plants came from appears to be Burchell Nursery in Fresno County. One glassy-winged sharpshooter egg mass was found a plant at a Napa County Costco, and 157 grapevines at that store remain unaccounted for and may have been sold, as the Chronicle reports via local officials.

Shipments also went to Yolo and Marin counties, and officials say that "all life stages" of the insects were found on different plant specimens.

Sonoma County Agricultural Commissioner Andrew Smith was quick to tell the Chronicle, "Costco is not at fault here, and they’ve been an exceptional partner throughout this process. They acted quickly, cooperated fully, and are working to notify members/customers as fast as possible."

Glassy-winged sharpshooters are reportedly dangerous in part because of how quickly and far they can travel from plant to plant, spreading disease as they go.

Top image: Photo by Reyes Garcia III, USDA Agricultural Research Service, United States via Wikimedia

I bring up the topic of our little six-legged pest-friends, Argentine ants, because I myself, as I type for you every day, have been engaged in a weeks-long battle to maintain a perimeter of Orange Guard around my kitchen and bathroom against an invading army. As it turns out, ants invading homes are an annual problem in California, just one I hadn't especially noticed until this year — local media began noting an uptick in ant invasions last summer, as the drought worsened in August. But as Stanford ant expert Deborah Gordon noted in a study back in 2001, there's virtually nothing you can do to stop the ants completely, and it all goes back to the weather. "They come in because of the weather, and they go out because of the weather," Gordon says.

As CBS 5 noted last year, Argentine ants are all over San Francisco and the Bay Area — and if you heard Gordon on this awesome episode of RadioLab a few years back, they're part of a "super colony" that's been building along the West Coast for 50 years, extending between Oregon and Mexico, and waging constant war along distinct borders the entire way down the coast with native ants. And they dislike both wet, cold weather and extremely dry, hot weather, taking opportunities therefore in both winter and summer months to invade homes in search of water and nourishment.

And most pesticides are useless against them, so as Gordon says, "we're only harming ourselves" when we spray them — most pesticides are designed to kill ant species that colonize around single queens, but Argentine worker ants actually have many queens, and are free to return to any nest.

A pest-control specialist called in by my landlord here in SF said that he's seeing the uptick all over town this spring and it's tied to how little rain we got this winter — the lack of rain meant that eggs that would typically be destroyed over the winter never were, and the current ant population has therefore exploded.

So, what can you do to keep your kitchen from becoming a disgusting ant farm? There are a few things:

• Orange Guard is human- and pet-safe, totally non-toxic, and made of orange oil. It kills ants on contact but also spraying perimeters with it, or areas where ants may be gaining entry, does do something to deter the ants from returning. But as I've found over about three weeks, it isn't a perfect solution and requires repeated effort — and there are other natural and chemical products out there that will have a similar effect.
• Make sure sugar bowls are covered, dishes are promptly washed, and that nothing sweet gets left out on counters or tables.
• Gordon says that most natural/herbal deterrents do very little to deter ants during infestations, and one of the only effective things you can do is to keep surfaces clean, and spray Windex along any ant trails that may be established, after they enter — ants are mostly blind and the reason they're following each other into your house is because other ants have left behind a trail of a pheromone-like substance that tells them there may be food ahead. The more ants that follow the trail, the stronger the "scent" becomes, and you end up with a hundred of them gnawing at a grain of rice that fell on the floor.
• Also, she suggests, "Try plugging up holes in walls where ants might enter." I'd add that spraying the orange stuff under doors and windows seems to help too.
• As for pet food that is easily accessible to the insects via the floor, Gordon says, "I also recommend building moats around pet food. If you put your cat bowl on a plate with soapy water, the ants won't be able to get across."

The good news is that ants don't carry diseases, and even if they're gross to look at they're not actually contaminating your kitchen counter or dining table as they traipse across it.

In battle, I salute you. And I'm right there with you.

If you're having a hankering for insects or mealworms this afternoon, you may want to stop by the Ferry Building where such snacks are now available in handy snack pouches from the La Cocina kiosk.

Don Bugito, the "Prehispanic snackeria" that is a business launched by Monica Martinez with the help of La Cocina's incubator program, specializes in using insects as food. Adventurous foodies around town have already tried things like her wax moth larvae tacos at the S.F. Street Food Festival, and now she's packaged up other treats like chocolate-covered salted crickets, and spicy "superworms" (mealworms) that are chile-lime spiked, as Zagat reports.

We are a little scared to try them ourselves, but other have earlier described the wax moth larvae as "mild" and "crispy," and this naturopathic doctor says that crickets are "like any other crunchy snack" and a bag of them "can be as addicting as a bag of potato chips."

And as Martinez assures us, eating bugs is "super healthy, both for people and the planet."

[Zagat]

Bee butt.

Did you know the Bay Area is under siege right now? It's true. The invader? Thousands and thousands of pudy butterflies. Why, just today we received an urgent message from SFist Deborah N about hundreds of colorful, frolicking butterflies swarming up Lapu Lapu. We've also heard reports of butterfly sightings from the Sunnyside neighborhood to Crissy Field.

According to San Jose Mercury News, "thousands, perhaps millions of painted lady butterflies are migrating through the Bay Area this month, on their way north from where they hatched in Southern California desert areas." Many Bay Area residents, it seems, have spotted "clouds of butterflies everywhere" this week.

This is soft news at its finest, folks. Not to be missed. So, if you happen to snap a shot of a few monarchs or painted ladies, send them to SFist. We'll show them off to the world. Simply tag said butterfly images in Flickr with 'sfist,' or just email them to editor@sfist.com.

Preference will be given to shots of people being chased and/or attacked by the winged creatures. The more creative, the better.

Hop to it, readers.

Holy smokes, this is the most harrowing thing we've ever reported. Allan Hough over at Mission Mission reports (via Inhabitat's Mike Chino) that bees have descended upon the Mission district. And they're out for blood! Check it:

Today (August 2nd) at 12:00 noon I spotted this itinerant horde of bees slowly making its way down 14th street between Mission and Valencia. The roving mass was apparently following a fugitive queen as she made her way down the block, clustering on top of cars and buildings with no concern for private property...

Go here for more detail.

Anyone else see the roving swarm? (Also, anybody else ever been stung by a bee before? We haven't. What can we expect? Please advise.)

Update: Bees quarantined, says MM. If you should ever need emergency beekeeping at a moment's notice - and, really, who doesn't? - contact sfbee.org. Bzzzz.

Beekeepers had to be called in to "wrangle" the insects back into their crates and back on the truck. The highway has since reopened. (Shudder.)