The Love Bug Picnic

Last week my brother Terry and his wife, Mary Ann, camped with Herb and I at Colt Creek State Park. It was a special trip since they live in Arizona, and drove their RV to Florida for a visit. We invited other members of our family to meet us at the campground for a picnic lunch.

The day of the gathering, Mary Ann covered the table with a colorful cloth. I helped her set out the traditional picnic fare. In addition to potato salad, coleslaw, and chips, we included a variety of toppings for hot dogs.

All of a sudden scores of love bugs descended on the table. Mary Ann was quick to cover the open deli containers with clear plastic shower caps. How ingenious, I thought, certainly that will keep the pesky insects out of our delicacies. I was glad she had a lot of shower caps, because the moment I opened a jar of pickle relish, a pair of love bugs landed on the inside of the metal lid. Yikes! In the blink of an eye, another pair dropped inside the jar.

While I busied myself scooping the bugs out of the relish, Mary Ann noticed a pair had attached themselves to a hot dog on the grill. Needless to say, these pests succumbed to a fiery death.

The bugs weren’t the only living things having difficulty with the heat. This is the hottest May I can remember, with temperatures rising to nearly ninety degrees every day.

Back to the food, Mary Ann and I stood guard over the table to defend our lunch from the invading bugs. I gently lifted the shower cap from the potato salad just far enough to spoon out a serving before any more bugs could crawl inside. Mary Ann scraped the dead bugs from each hot dog before placing it on a plate. Believe it or not, no one got sick.

Once served, each picnicker hurried back to their chair which we had positioned under huge beach umbrellas. Everyone kept their eyes on their lunch as they ate. Although we were kind of miserable, we laughed because we had never experienced a picnic like this before. It was like no other. No matter what, we were all happy to be together.

One day later I found a screened-in picnic shelter by the lake. Although we took advantage of this new location for our second picnic lunch, the rest of our family had already gone home.

Facts about Love Bugs

This is an unusually bad year for love bugs in Florida due to increased rain. Although they are harmless and don’t bite or sting, the bugs stick to vehicles during highway driving. Unless they are washed off, they can eat the paint of a car.

An adult love bug lives only three or four days and those days are filled with mating. Love bug mating season occurs twice a year during the months of May and September. They feed on nectar from flowers and like other pollinators actually benefit the environment. Contrary to local legend, love bugs were not created by the University of Florida as part of an experiment to control mosquitoes. The insects migrated to U.S. from Central America in the 1920’s.

Love bugs are active between the hours of 10:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. This is something I want to remember when scheduling our next family picnic.