At first, I thought it was a big pollen bloom. The vining milkweed, which really is a weed in our garden, the volunteer swamp milkweed, and the common milkweed were all covered in a coarse, bright yellow dust. But as I cleared the fence line, I became curious about the nature of this incursion, and so I did a photo search.
It wasn't until I got the results that I pinched open the picture to magnify the canary-hued grains.
They were bugs! Oleander aphids, to be exact, an invasive species from the Mediterranean that targets milkweed. The article I found assured me they probably wouldn't harm the milkweed, or any Monarch eggs or larvae sharing the plant with them, but they do compete for the same food source, absorbing toxins from the plant to make themselves taste gross to predators. That's why they are so brightly colored; it's a warning. Also, there are no male oleander aphids; they are all female clones, and they are born pregnant, which explains the rapid rate of infestation.
That is borderline cool and yucky. I disposed of many of them in the course of weeding the garden, but there are still plenty around. Maybe a swarm of ladybugs will arrive next and gobble them all up.
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