Beneficial insects

Warre Bee Hive

The Warre' hive is built to resemble as closely as possible a bee's natural home. In nature, honeybees live in the trunks of old trees. The Warre' hive is built with a series of square boxes with top bars on each box for the bees to suspend comb from. The top has a quilt box to provide added insulation and then the roof. The entrance is at the bottom of the hive and the bees are left to build their own comb in each of the boxes.

Beneficial insects

What are beneficial insects?
Beneficial insects are those who either pollinate flowers or eat other insects that damage plants. If you spend time watching in the garden, you are likely to seem some of each. The traditional American way to deal with insects has been to spray them with some kind of insecticide, whether organic or inorganic. Unfortunately, this not only kills the harmful insects, it also kills the beneficial ones who might otherwise limit the number of harmful ones.

Assassin Bugs

Pests eaten:
caterpillars, leafhoppers, other bugs, aphids

Some favorite plants:
caraway, fennel, goldenrod, dill, coriander, Queen Anne's lace, buckwheat, alfalfa, and parsley

Description:
Assassin bugs are long slender bugs with a narrow head and a long beak they use to feed on their prey. They can be black, gray, green, red or brown. The nymphs are only about 1/4 inch growing to 3/4 inch or larger as adults. Some species of assassin bugs also feed on mammals such as rodents or bats.

Damsel bugs

Pests eaten:
thrips, mites, aphids, other bugs, small caterpillars, leafhoppers, lygus bugs

Some favorite plants:
caraway, fennel, goldenrod, cosmos 'White Sensation', marigold 'Lemon Gem', alfalfa

Hover or syrphid fly

Pests eaten:
aphids and other soft-bodied insects

Some favorite plants:
caraway, fennel, goldenrod, dill, coriander, Queen Anne's lace, buckwheat, fernleaf yarrow, golden chamomile, cosmos 'White sensation', marigold 'Lemon gem', and cornflower

Lacewings

Pests eaten:
aphids, caterpillars (small), leafhoppers, mealybugs, mites, psyllids, spider mites, thrips, whiteflies and some insect eggs

Some favorite plants:
caraway, fennel, dill, coriander, Queen Anne's lace, fernleaf yarrow, golden chamomile, cosmos, tansy, cornflower

Ladybugs

Pests eaten:
aphids, scales, psyllids, mites

Some favorite plants:
fennel, dill, coriander, Queen Anne's lace, buckwheat, fernleaf yarrow, golden chamomile, tansy, cornflower, and hops.

Parasitic wasps

Pests eaten:
aphids, beetles, caterpillars, flies, gypsy moth, leafminers, moths, sawflies, scale insects, spiders, true bugs, weevil, wood-boring beetle larvae

Some favorite plants:
caraway, fennel, goldenrod, dill, coriander, Queen Anne's lace, fernleaf yarrow, golden chamomile, cosmos, marigold (lemon gem), tansy, cornflower, parsley

Insects

Insects come in all forms from the creepy crawly to the stunningly beautiful. I have found as we've built our soil and increased the plant life, the insect population has grown as well. Learning to live peacefully with some insects can certainly be challenging but many provide valuable inputs into the system we are creating when we build sustainable landscapes. Our goal here is to highlight some of the challenges and some of those insects than can contribute to the life in our yards in a beneficial way.