Question
I have a problem with mealybugs & wish some specific advice. I have an extensive indoor plant collection & would like to use some of them to propagate more plants to sell. With mealybugs now, it's out of the question. They're a devil to get rid of & many times, it's recommended to throw out any infested plants. The trouble is when I brought the plant in with them, they must've been just starting & it wasn't noticeable. I normally will isolate new plants but I thought this one had come from a reliable nursery. Now I know better for future purchases of any new plants. I can't exactly get rid of infested plants as ones I think are fine will later show mealybugs. I'd have to throw all my plants out & I'm not ready to do such drastic measures - yet. I have over 58 species & many more cultivars of some of these species. As I said, my collection is large. Some are quite mature & large plants too.

I've tried the standard procedures - soap & alcohol spray with redoing in a week or so, cotton Q-tips with alcohol on individual bugs, hand squishing, & isolation of plants but no matter how diligent I try to be, a few must remain & return. Some of the plants are very large & not easy to move about either. Others are sensitive to alcohol & can't be treated with it. I try to treat the soil too, in case any fall & remain there or are low, just below soil surface on the trunks or stems. I'm not ignorant of plant science or mealybug life cycle & the diff kinds.

Just this once, I wish I could use a systemic poison to treat them but because I'm not a licensed grower, I can't get a hold of any. I want to point out that I live in Canada & laws are changing making it difficult to impossible for ordinary gardeners to buy insecticides & herbicides (which I agree with on the whole).
I have three questions I'd like to ask.
Would nicotine in tobacco tea be absorbed into a plant's system or would it only remain in the soil if I were to water with it too?
If I were to make a tisane (tea) of tobacco & spray my plants with it, would that kill the mealybugs better than what's commercially available to me?
Have you any other advice that I may not have heard of before (I have done extensive reading & searching on the internet for extra info)?

I'm asking a few others on AllExperts too, hoping that I can find an answer. I just feel that asking someone with a degree & professional experience might be better than asking some who considered themselves horticultural "experts" as I've found many haven't even the basic understanding of plant science.

With much appreciation for any help you can offer.
sincerely, Judy Wilkins

Answer
Here is some information on mealybugs and nicotine--
I think it will work but remember to wear rubber gloves when making the "tea".  

Nicotine is used in greenhouses and gardens to control soft-bodied sucking pests such as aphids, thrips, and mites. Because they can be toxic to humans, nicotine teas are not recommended as a way to control garden or household pests.

The tobacco companies probably wouldn't want this to be widely known, but the active ingredient from the tobacco spray that poisoned the pests was nicotine, a broad-spectrum poison that will kill any insect in its path. Although you can make your own tobacco spray, it is no longer recommended for use on food plants. There are other botanical (plant-derived) insecticides available on the market that are much safer when used as directed; pyrethrum and neem are two examples. These are also broad-spectrum, but when you use them properly and only when truly needed, you can have less impact on non-target and beneficial species. Just recently, cottonseed oil has been formulated for use as a suffocating oil spray for use against scale, mealybugs, and other pests."

Nicotine
One of the top three insecticides in the 1880s, nicotine in several forms is still widely used. Nicotine comes from the tobacco plant and is extremely toxic to insects. The great advantage of home-made nicotine tea is that it is very short ived, retaining its toxicity for only a few hours after spraying. It is relatively nonhazardous to bees and lady beetles because of its short persistence.
Protection Offered:   Nicotine is effective against ground and soil pests, especially root aphids and fungus gnats, and on many leaf-chewing insects, such as aphids, immature scales, leafhoppers, thrips, leafminers, pear psylla, and asparagus beetle larvae.
How To Make:   You can brew your own batch of nicotine tea by soaking tobacco leaves or cigarette butts in water to make a spray. Soak 1 cup of dried, crushed tobacco leaves, or an equivalent amount of cigarette butts, in one gallon of warm water with 1/4 teaspoon pure soap added. Strain the mixture through cheesecloth after it has soaked for 1/2 hour. The solution will keep for several weeks if stored in a tightly closed container.
How to Use:    For soil pests, pour the spray mixture onto the soil in the area of the stem base and root zone. for leaf pests, spray leaves thoroughly, especially the undersides. Nicotine can be absorbed by plant leaves and remain there for several weeks. to be safe, use nicotine only on young plants and only up to one month before harvest. It's probably safest not to spray nicotine on eggplant, peppers or tomatoes. While most tobacco cultivars now grown are resistant to tobacco mosaic virus, nicotine sprays could contain the pathogen, which will infect nightshade family crops.

Tobacco teas are sometimes prepared by home gardeners to control garden pests, and while not as toxic as nicotine sulfate sprays, any nicotine solution toxic enough to kill insects can also be harmful to humans