Since I brought my figs inside scales had started to take over a bit. I started to use neem oil which is suppose to kill them them, but I don't see them slowing down anytime soon.  I have to pick them off manually one by one to help control them. Is there any other way? 

One of my Strawberry Verte's had a very bad scales infestation a few weeks ago and at the time, I didn't even know what scales were.  I did some research also when diagnosed by another F4F member (thanks, Gina!), and after trying a couple of recommendations, the thing that worked for me was to get 70% rubbing alcohol soaked cotton and wipe down the plant everywhere, there were scales.  They came right off with the alcohol.  I did one more treatment a couple of weeks later for a few scales that came back, and it's helped immensely.

There were at least one or two threads on scales on this forum last winter where a bunch of people discussed their various scale remedies.  I had two trees with really bad scale infestations that I treated in late winter with a combination of horticultural oil (to smother them) laced with a bit of malathion (for good measure, since there were so many of them.)  I waited about a month and retreated them to get any remaining stragglers.  In the summer I came across a single scale that happened to be in a very well protected area at the base of a branch.  Other than that, I haven't seen them come back and the trees did very well.  (I still have 2 figs ripening on one of them, which I hope to be eating sometime in early November!)
  Note -- these were potted trees that I brought outside on warm winter days to treat...
Jim

I just spent the last 30 minutes pulling off some good sized ones. I also tried the alcohol treatment. I will keep checking back until I don't see any more. 

They can be removed by rubbing your hands on the branches. They can often be removed with high pressure water stream. They can be killed by spraying with a horticultural oil, which will suffocate them

I have had really good luck with rubbing alchol diluted with water and spraying the whole plant. I used to rub them off with rubbing alchol and a q-tip but they just kept comming back. I guess I never could find all the babies. I have used summer oil and neem oil, too, but the spray has worked the best.

Ladybugs!!!  I order mine off of Amazon earlier this year and am already seeing baby ladybugs around the house.  Ladybugs eat young scale. 

Susan ,
How much are you diluting the rubbing alcohol ?

I don't think I would want a house full of lady bugs. lol. I hear that there is something you feed the plants that kills them when they suck from the plant.

I had this problem recently and I only have it with 2 Chicago Hardy, and I purchased those from 2 different nurseries, I did scraped them with white plastic marker, and then with little water, did not see them come back yet.
Mark

Kerry, I don't really remember exactly. I want to say 50/50 but not sure. I read about it on this forum, though. It worked for someone else on the forum so you might be to find the dilution rate with a forum search. Sorry. I tend to just kind of wing it...I had it on a blood orange and it spread to some of my figs. I would think that I had gotten rid of it but then I would find it on something else a few months later. The spray got rid of all of it. I haven't had anymore in over a year.

I just switched to some horticulture oil to see if that is better than neem oil. The neem oil didn't seem to kill them off completely.  

Scales are hard to see, I found some last week and luckily it was before any damage could happen....need to buy a Prey Mantis...LOL

I recently bought 3 fig rooted starters  from ebay.
Initially they looked fine, but later on, I noticed ants on the leaves.
On close examination, I noted that the ants were feeding on the
"stuff" secreted by then still young scale crawlers.

First I sprayed with Neem oil.
Nothing happened; them ants were still enjoying themselves.

Then I sprayed with insecticidal soap (from Gardens Alive).
Within a few minutes, even the ants dropped dead.

(One can brew own soap-spay from some mild dish washing detergent.)

Insects do not have lungs like us (or gills like fish) to breathe;
instead they have tiny holes along their body through which oxygen comes in.
(Thankfully, nature keeps them ugly/monster-featured looking-bugs very small - think of that horror-ant-movie.)

Apparently, the soapy film (think soap-bubbles) blocks the O2, and then suffocates them to death.

Thanks George.

I try to wash my tree good before bring in them inside.  Here's a pretty good recipe.  Neeem oil alone did not work for me either, but this did:

http://www.todayshomeowner.com/how-to-make-homemade-insecticidal-soap-for-plants/


The recipe is the best way to go for a lot of trees to treat.  I also add Physan 20 to my mix.  That stuff is amazing.

As Gorgi mentioned, many times ants and scale infestations go hand in hand.  The ants will feed on the stuff the scale insects secrete, and will also protect them from certain predators.  I think the scale eggs can also be transported by the ants, so if you have both, it's harder to get rid of them.  You might scrape off all the scale only to find them back a few days/weeks later.  You'd have to kill the ants and the scale.