Beneficial Insects in the Garden
Which are the most beneficial insects? We’re talking about bugs that are good for plants in the garden and eat pests that would otherwise eat your plants. Find out and start thinking about which plants and flowers attract beneficial insects!
What Are Beneficial Insects?
The average backyard is home to thousands of insects, but you may be surprised to learn that only about a tenth of these are destructive. In fact, most are either beneficial or harmless. Beneficial insects fall into three main categories:
Pollinators: We depend on these insects—including bees, butterflies, flies, and moths—to pollinate our garden’s flowers.
Predators: These insects eliminate pests by eating them. Things like ladybugs, praying mantids, and green lacewing larvae fall into this category.
Parasitizers: Like predators, parasitizers also prey upon other insects, but in a slightly different way. They lay their eggs on or in the bad bugs, and when the eggs hatch, the larvae feed on the host insects. Parasitic wasps are the main member of this category.
Meet the Beneficial Bugs in Your Backyard
Everyone knows their bees from their butterflies, but what about the many other beneficial bugs? It’s likely that you’ve already seen these good guys in your garden, but maybe you weren’t formally introduced. Here are a few you might want to become acquainted with:
Ladybugs
Despite their delightful name and appearance, ladybugs are ferocious predators! Before they get their bright red colors, they start out life as larvae (pictured below), cruising around on plants and feasting on aphids. Did you know that a ladybug larva can eat up to 40 aphids an hour?
Green Lacewings
Adult green lacewings feed on pollen and nectar, but their larvae, which look like a mix between a slug and an alligator, prey upon soft-bodied garden pests, including caterpillars and aphids.
Praying Mantids
A praying mantis will make short work of any grasshoppers that are troubling you; these fierce predators will also hunt many other insect pests that terrorize gardens, including moths, beetles, and flies. Note, however, that praying mantids are ruthless and will also eat other beneficials, like butterflies, bees, and hummingbirds—and even each other!
Spiders
Spiders—though technically arachnids rather than insects—are often overlooked as beneficial, but they are very effective pest controllers. Since they are attracted to their prey by movement, they eat many live insects. Jumping spiders and wolf spiders (pictured) are especially good at keeping pests under control.
Ground Beetles
“Ground beetles” is the name of a large group of predatory beetles that are beneficial as both adults and larvae. They will eat a wide range of insects, including nematodes, caterpillars, thrips, weevils, slugs, and silverfish. While insects like Japanese beetles should be controlled in the garden, don’t crush every beetle you see!
Soldier Beetles
Soldier beetles are an important predator of Mexican bean beetles, Colorado potato beetles, caterpillars, and aphids. Like many beneficials, they are attracted to plants that have compound blossoms, such as Queen Anne’s lace and yarrow.
Assassin Bugs
Assassin bugs look like a strange mix between a praying mantis and a squash bug. They use their sharp mouthparts to prey upon many different types of insect pests in the garden. In their adult form, they can be mistaken for squash bugs, so look carefully before you squish something!
Robber Flies
With their extra-long legs, robber flies are bug-eating machines that we’re thankful to have on our side. They may look intimidating, but unlike horseflies, they do not attack humans (although they are capable of biting when threatened). Instead, they go after a number of common garden pests. Try not to shoo this fly!
Hoverflies
Another good fly to have in your garden, the hoverfly looks like a tiny yellowjacket without a stinger. They feed on pollen and nectar and are extremely important pollinators. Their larvae are voracious predators, killing aphids, caterpillars, beetles, and thrips by sucking the juice from their victims.
Parasitic Wasps
Parasitic wasps are very tiny, so you probably won’t see them at work. However, they are a very effective pest control.
Brachonid wasps lay their eggs on the backs of tomato hornworms and other caterpillars, forming those white cocoons you see on the caterpillar’s back (pictured below). If you see a parasitized caterpillar, don’t kill it. Instead, move it to elsewhere in your garden. The wasp larvae will take care of them for you and turn into more wasps, who will continue to do their good work in your tomato patch.
Trichogramma wasps are minuscule wasps (several of them can fit on the head of a pin) that lay their eggs inside the eggs of over 200 different insect pests, preventing the pests’ eggs from ever hatching in the first place.
The tachinid fly looks like just a small housefly, but is an active parasitizer of corn borers, gypsy moth caterpillars, grasshoppers, Japanese beetles, Mexican bean beetles, squash bugs, and green stinkbugs.
Attracting Beneficial Insects
Like all living creatures, beneficial insects have a basic need for water, food, and shelter. By providing these things, your garden will become an inviting home for them.
A diversity of plants will attract a wide range of insects. Many beneficials appear in the garden before the pests do and need alternative food sources such as pollen and nectar if they are to stick around.
Early-blooming plants, especially ones with tiny blossoms like alyssum, or biennials such as carrots or parsley that have been left to bloom, will help draw beneficials to your yard in the spring.
Later, they will be especially attracted to plants with compound blossoms such as yarrow, goldenrod, and Queen Anne’s lace and flowering herbs like lavender, mint, sage, dill, fennel, and lemon balm.
Remember that if you resort to using chemical pesticides to control insects, you will often kill good and bad bugs alike. Even the so-called “natural” pesticides like pyrethrum and rotenone will kill many beneficial insects.
https://www.almanac.com/beneficial-insects-garden
Mom was working in her flower bed (one of them) yesterday and I noticed all these bees flying around. At first I thought they were yellow jackets, but when I looked more closely, there were no yellow stripes & watching them, they were going into individual holes and they did not seem to be aggressive at all. I looked them up and they fit the description of cellophane bees. They are great pollinators, have individual holes, the males have no stingers and while the females can sting, they are not aggressive at all. They will be around for about a month and then disappear. They do not like moist or wet soil and they like building their nest in sandy or dry soil. The soil in mom’s flower bed fits the bill for what they like. Since they are good pollinators, we will just let them be (no pun intended) and they will disappear in a month or so and then they will be back next spring.
We are having a groundhog invasion around here. The county forced the neighbor to clean up his junky property and I’m sure there were quite a few groundhogs living under all the junk. Since the cleanup, they are coming to our place and getting under the horse barn and our pole barns. I spotted number three eating grass off the side of the horse barn last night. Number one has been dispatched and there was an attempt to terminate number two Thursday (very ‘exciting’ - the dog was involved which added to the drama), which may or may not have been successful (I think it ultimately will be). These ‘hogs are so destructive - we have no power in the horse barn because their digging went through the buried electric lines & also caused a leak in the water line so we have to keep the water turned off. No animals in the barn or we’d have to make very expensive repairs.
Grass needs mowing in the yard & around the garden (LOL - what else is new?). The T-storms missed us last night so I will have to water today - garden & new/transplanted bushes look great. Several big projects on the “to do” list .... trying to beat the heat & humidity (we had it yesterday). Beautiful morning - overcast, nice breeze & late spring mild temps. The birds are happy - singing up a storm, which is so cheerful!
I ordered some praying mantid egg cases and some assassin beetles. They are on the counter waiting to hatch. I out them in canning jars with tulle covering the jars for air circulation.
I check them a couple times a day, especially the praying mantids which will start eating each other if nothing else is available.
Last year I did the praying mantids and later in the summer, actually saw two full grown ones. I didn’t find any egg cases though but we have lots of property to check.
Considering how much damage the harmful ones do, it’s good there is not a higher percentage of them.
I also planted yarrow, nasturtiums, dill, marigolds, and herbs.
Saw containers of live ladybugs at Lowe’s the other day. Once, years ago, we bought some and turned them loose in our garden. Within five minutes they had all departed for parts unknown, and we didn’t see a one in the garden after that.