One of the main concerns of summer residents in the cultivation of any crops is to protect their plantings from insect pests. One of them - snowstroke beetle nicknamed kravchik (in Ukrainian "kravets" means "tailor"). In this article we will look at a detailed description of the Kravchik beetle and methods of dealing with it.
Tselinnik, strigun, kravchik
Large beetles reaching 3.5 cm in lengththey prefer to live on untouched lands, but with the development of agriculture and the seizure of human beings, more and more land is settled next to the cultivated areas, which makes it easier for them to find food.
The head is flat, large, with a straight line connecting the forehead and platband, with a pair of eyes located on the edges of the buccal projections.
Before the eyes there is a pair of rigid antennae, at the ends of which there are brush-like thickenings. Males have fang-like rigid processes in the jaw, with which males win the right to mate. The mandibles are covered with short hairs, hiding between the canine pliers. In females, the jaw processes are smoothly rounded, have no canines.
Ants, the Colorado beetles, the bear, the May beetles, the bugs, the tsikadki, the wasps, the moths, the locust infect the gardeners.
The body of the beetle is massive, the elongated head part smoothly passes into a powerful wide chest and ends with a rounded belly. In general, the body of the beetle looks convex, as if pulled into its shell. The color may be dull black or black with a blue glow in the sun.There are three pairs of tenacious and strong limbs that are covered with hard hairs, and claws are present at the ends of the paws.
The wings are not developed, this species does not fly, it has hard and short, accrete elytra.
Did you know? Beetles are the most numerous insect family, constituting about 40% of all existing individuals. Entomological scientists believe that there are more than five million species of beetles, although only 350 thousand have been studied so far.
Harm and danger
The beetle of snow shrimp is more than dangerous for cultural plantings, because it multiplies rapidly and quantitatively. One female lays eight to ten eggs in a clutch, but this is only one mink. A few of these minks per square meter carry a real threat of vegetation covering ten times more territory.
In order to provide their offspring with food, beetles literally cut off all the greens in their path with powerful jaws: stems, leaves, buds with inflorescences, even green non-woody vine.
Important! In one day, a pest can destroy up to a dozen green vines of grapes, cut at the root of several bushes of garden strawberries and other crops. Do not disdain, and young ornamental shrubs and dwarf shrubs.
How to recognize a pest?
The task of how to get rid of the snowstorm is not easy to solve. These beetles live more than one year, wintering in holes dug in the ground. On the surface of the earth insects are selected in March, mate and lay eggs. Moves in the burrows to cover the offspring from the cold and predators, as well as provide them with food, they are closed with plugs of cut greens. 
To learn about the presence of kravchik on the site can be mink and stumps of stalks around them. The holes of minks are rather wide and visible to the eye, but their depth and branching represent a certain difficulty in the destruction of the pest.
Did you know? Beetles have been accompanying humanity for a long time, unfortunately, not always out of good intentions. In addition to spoiling crops, there are gourmets who happily chew on museum samples of tapestries and antique furniture, stuffed animals, woolen carpets and furs, antique tools made from precious woods.
Methods of struggle
The methods of fighting the snowstorm beetle require almost a creative approach, since the species is particularly tenacious and prolific. Again, the tunnels of his burrows are a safe haven.
Do chemicals help?
Insecticides for the destruction of insects are mostly powerless, hiding in a hole, the pest calmly pereidit processing time, and then take up his. It is possible to cultivate the soil with chemical preparations during breeding, according to the observations of farmers, this is the period of apple blossoms. 
Preparations can be used to cultivate the soil and the entrances to burrows, in the hope that this will somehow contain reproduction. This uses Decis, Arrivo, Diazinon, exposing the processing and deciduous parts of plants. Even if the processing of chemicals was a success, you need to manually collect beetles fleeing from the action of chemistry.
Important! When using insecticides be careful in dosages, many drugs are not safe for beneficial insects (bees), and for humans.To prevent insect invasions, they are satisfied with traps: a ditch up to 30 cm in depth is dug around the site, and greens, generously moistened with a 5% Karate solution, are placed on the bottom as bait. It is a pyrethroid chemical that has a contact action and is less toxic. Trapped beetles destroy and look periodically, whether there is a new batch of trapped.
What then?
Among the tips than to poison a snowstring beetle, there is a method to pour boiling water or soapy water into the burrows. Liquid in large quantities is poured into the holes in the early morning or after sunset, when the beetles are probably in the hole. The method does not provide a 100% guarantee, but it does take place as an aid. 
In many forums, you can find a recommendation to blow into the holes cheap assembly foam, then just dig frozen beetles in it. But it is worth pondering: whether the components of the foam composition will be toxic to the soil, whether its composition will affect it.
One of the most popular and effective ways is the usual sunflower oil. A solution of one hundred milliliters of oil and two liters of water (a plastic bottle can be used as a mixer and working tank) is poured into the holes. Oil clogs the insect's respiratory organs, trying to escape, it crawls out of the hole. Breathing even on the surface is no longer restored and the insect perishes.
In the fight against beetles you need to constantly dig up the area, thus destroying the burrows, you do not give a chance to posterity to survive.
The appearance of any insect pests in gardens and orchards is a threat to the crop, so it is always easier to prevent insects from attacking than to fight their invasion. Timely digging and constant monitoring of plantings, preventive measures taken, will preserve your harvest.
