Protect Your Garden with Beneficial Bugs
(Page 5 of 6)
August/September 2004
By Barbara Pleasant
Lady beetles (Coleoptera) are yellow-orange to red, with black spots. Adults are one-fourth-inch long. Both adults and larvae, which look like tiny blue-black and orange alligators, feed on aphids, scale, thrips, whiteflies, spider mites, mealybugs and other soft-bodied pests. Adults are attracted to nectar and pollen plants. Lady beetles overwinter as adults in leaf litter, tree crevices and homes.
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Wasps (Hymenoptera) include numerous species of predators and parasites. Large paper wasps are predators, but many parasitic species such as braconids look like tiny flying ants. Some “micro-wasps” that parasitize eggs are so small you may never see them. Braconids lay eggs in the bodies of other insects, including caterpillars, tomato hornworms, aphids, thrips, Mexican bean beetle larvae and various borers. The eggs hatch and the larvae feed on their hosts’ body fluids. Braconids and other parasitic wasps are most active in warm weather, and they like humid conditions. They are attracted by nectar in small flowers.
Predatory bugs (Hemiptera) include soldier bugs, which look like squash bugs but have sharp spines on their shoulders, and big-eyed bugs, which have large bulging eyes on the sides of their heads and no shoulder spines. Both types of predators eat leaf beetle larvae, small caterpillars and many other insects. A third type of predatory bug, the one-fourth-inch-long, black-and-white minute pirate bug, feeds on thrips, mites and insect eggs. Adults of all three species overwinter in perennial weeds or other debris.
Ground beetles (Coleoptera) are large, often black, shiny beetles that frequently are encountered beneath mulch. About 2,500 species are native to North America. Ground beetles are most active at night. They consume soil-dwelling, soft-bodied pests, including slugs, snails and caterpillars. Although they are called ground beetles, some species do climb trees to feed on caterpillars. Ground beetles need a stable habitat because they do not move around very much. They also grow more slowly than many other insects; a complete life cycle, from egg to larvae to pupae to adult, takes one year, and most adults live two to three years.
Hover flies or syrphid flies (Diptera) are brightly colored flies that resemble bees and that hover and dart like hummingbirds. They don’t sting. The larvae — cylinder-shaped maggots with tapered heads —feed on aphids, mealybugs and other small insects. A larva may consume 400 aphids before pupating. Adults feed on pollen and flower nectar. Hover flies overwinter as pupae in the soil.
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