| You do not have to do any wiping or that sort of thing. The oil of the neem will smother the scale and kill the eggs and mobile nymphs, which I assume is what you have, since ants generally farm these.
Scale looks like little bumps on the plant and can be nuged gently off their feeding location with a finger.
Mites are extremely tiny, and even a hand lens will not likely show much, maybe little dots that move, but not usually legs and the like. Some mites are smaller than others, so some are hard to see in a microscope, it takes high power (30X) to see the legs on some. Mites are usually identified by the damage they do. A silvery look to the leaves results as they are chlorophyl eaters. Red mites can be determined by whiping the underside of the leaves with a white cloth ot tissue and a rust color shows up on the material. Spider mites can some times be identified by the very fine webs and the little dust particles that slowly move along the web are the mites. Scaring on the under side of the leaves is another indication. Cynthia  |