Beneficial Insects
May 9, 2008 by Angie
Beneficial insects can be a great help in the garden but some of them look a bit strange and as though they might do more harm than good. So here are some pictures of the most common ones and the low-down on what they do to help in the garden. Click on any of the pictures for a closer view.
Ladybird
Mature Ladybird - Early larva stage - Mid larva stage
All eat hundreds of aphids (greenfly, blackfly etc)
Photo credits: Ladybird - Thomas G. Moertel, Early stage - Marcus Van Hoorn, Mid stage - fr:Utilisateur:Anthere
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Hoverfly
Hoverflies look like miniature wasps which hover and flit about very fast. They don’t have a sting and won’t hurt you.
The adults pollinate your flowers and vegetables. The larva eat aphids.
Photo credits - Hoverflies by Nigel Jones, Hoverfly larva by Peter Birch
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Green Lacewing
Green Lacewing are not often seen during the day but you can see them at night flitting around outside lights. If you have any of those solar portable garden lights try moving them near to plants infested with aphids and the lacewing will hopefully move on to them, lay eggs which turn into larva and eat all the aphids.
Lacewing larva Photo by Neil Phillips
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Parasitic wasps
There are about 7000 different types of parasitic wasps in the UK. Some of these tiny wasps lay their eggs inside of aphids, which does tend to finish them off.
Photo by Andy Hay
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Mason Bee
These are solitary bees who do not have hives or make honey. They are active far earlier in the year than honey bees and are very useful for pollinating early crops.
Photo by Walwyn on flickr.com
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Ground Beetles
Lots of different types of beetle will eat aphids and small slugs. Encourage them into your garden by leaving a bit of an old log or two in an out of the way place for them to live in.
Photo by Neil Phillips
[...] hoverflies, lacewings & parasitic wasps. If you want to know more about them see my previous ‘Beneficial Insects’ [...]