At each of the three successive molts, it produces a new shell that expands beneath the old armor. This waxy covering is difficult to penetrate with insecticides. Winged males crawl out from beneath their cover and mate with covered females who produce eggs. Females can produce about 100 eggs each. Soft scales are not covered by a waxy shell and excrete large amounts of liquid excrement called honeydew.
Crawlers hatch from eggs in mid-summer.
In most species, crawlers go directly to leaves where spend most of the summer. They return to the twigs and bark where they spend the winter as settled second stage scales. They continue to grow on twigs in the spring until winged males mate with wingless females, who swell with up to 1,000 eggs. The natural enemies you are likely to encounter are lady beetles, predaceous mites,and small parasitic wasps. The evidence left behind by each of these natural enemies can be easily recognized.