Mealy bugs

[NYCorchidman]

One dendrobium nobile I won at an auction came heavily loaded with mealy bugs.
They were all over in and out of all the flowers and leaves.

What I did was to manually pick out all the ones I could see. then I soaked the entire plant in the bucket full of soapy water ( liquid hand soap) for about ten minutes.

then I rinsed and checked again very closely. I found a few more inside flowers. I picked them all out using tooth pick.

The next day, all the flowers died. I guess they didn't like the soap water shower too much. lol

I kept my eyes on the plant for a few days checking for any bugs. I did find tiny baby mealy bugs crawing out of small crack where the leaves meet the cane.
Killed them with toothpick.

That was the end of it. no spread and have not seen any since.

That was about a year ago.

I think you should manually pick (and kill them!) all the ones you can find. then give the affected plant soap water shower for a long time. then rinse.
Or I think make a strong soap water where you can see lots of bubble. apply this all over the plant covering everything little crack. leave it one for a while. This should suffocate and kill quite a few.
Rinse with water.

Check the affected plants daily and pick out manually each time you see any bugs.

Repeat the soap shower weekly.

Nothing develops resistance against soap but simply just suffocate and die when the treatment is done properly.

It does take some tedious work though.