After mating the female chews a hole into the cone, often on the underside and deposits 1-6 eggs. The pine cone weevil, Conotrachelus neomexicanus shown here is primarily a problem in the western U.S. 8. The larvae of the cone weevil first feeds on the outer cone tissue but then begin mining toward the center, filling the tunnel behind them with fine frass. The feeding and tunneling activities destroys all of the internal structures of the cone. You can see the white leg-less weevil larvae here in a cone that has been bisected.
Blister beetles are soft bodied with leathery, rather soft fore wings.
They are elongate, as shown here , and are of moderate to fairly large size. The adults are gregarious and may completely consume mature pollen sacs, leaving only the flower stalks. Serious out breaks of these insects have not occurred in southern pine seed orchards, however male flowers on select parent trees in tree breeding experiments have been completely destroyed. The brown shading to black fore wings are marked with sharply contrasting white patches and cross bands. Larvae bore in flowers, shoots, and cones.