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Garden Insects

The term 'garden insect helpers' generally refers to insects that are beneficial as pollinators or as feeders on destructive bugs. Among the best known of the beneficial insects are the ladybird beetle, the colorful butterfly, and the busy bee. What's bugging your garden? Are there slugs in your salad greens, ants in your azaleas, bean beetles in your beans, or some other pesty insect in your garden? Insects like to eat, but gardeners are not willing to share.

500 Questions

Why are you seeing so many ladybugs this year?

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Asked by Wiki User

This is a great article that says that it is because the US Forest service imported a bunch about 5 years ago... they were imported to eat Aphids.

Read on: www.ladybuglady.com/article.htm

How does honey come out of a bee?

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Asked by Wiki User

Honey doesn't come out of a bee.

Bees collect nectar and hold it in a special 'honey stomach', which is separate from the normal digestive tract. When she returns to the hive the bee regurgitates the nectar and passes it to one of the hive bees who takes it up to the comb, and puts it into one of the cells. It is warm within the hive, and bees also fan the nectar in order to evaporate off the excess water from it. The result is honey.

When the honey is ready the bees cover the cell with a wax cap to preserve it.

How do bugs help plants?

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Asked by Wiki User

Controlling growth, dispersing seeds, and eating predators are ways in which bugs help plants. For example, bugs that are not invading or swarming in response to environmental stress and that are not natural enemies (such as aphids) may eat just enough to contain -- and not permanently damage -- development while acting as natural controls on "bad bugs" (as in the interaction between beneficial ladybugs and harmful mealybugs) and natural supports for the next generation by spreading pollen or seeds.

What attracts ground nesting bees?

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Asked by Wiki User

hornets

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there are a number of bees that nest in the ground..digger bees are solitary bees that will nest in large numbers at time, creating holes along the ground...in arid areas honeybees will nest in old ground burrows...wasps like yellow jackets will nest in the ground..a large wasp called a cicada killer is a solitary wasp that also nests in the ground

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Is the yellow ladybug poisonous?

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Asked by Wiki User

No, yellow ladybugs are not poisonous.

Specifically, the Asian ladybug beetle (Harmonia axyridis) is one of the insects in question (Coccinellidae family) whose background coloring can be orange, red or yellow. Such bright colors serve to warn potential predators of a distasteful meal. A predator famished enough to go ahead and eat a yellow ladybug would suffer an upset digestion but would not die unless some other complicating factor - such as severe dehydration or pesticide exposure - is involved.

How do you kill ants without hurting honeybees in vegetable gardens?

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Asked by Wiki User

Diatomaceous earth and scratchy organic mulches are ways to kill ants without hurting honeybees in vegetable gardens. Harm to the beneficial insect in question (Apis spp) is avoided by concentrating on the ground, where ants (Formicidae family) are and bees are not. Home remedies revolve around hot water down ant holes and sprinkled cinnamon and salt along ant routes.

Which insect uses bioluminescence for mating?

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Asked by Wiki User

Click beetles and fireflies are both bio luminescent. Click beetles are equipped with two menacing "false eye-spots" on the thorax, and many are more than 1-1/2 inches in length. Tropical relatives of the big-eyed click beetle are called fire beetles and have bioluminescent eye-spots. One, Pyrophorus luminosa, produces "cold light" that is green and red, and is as bright as that of the more familiar fireflies. Its larvae, called glow-worms, also produce light.

What kind of spider is red with a white butt?

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Asked by Wiki User

THE ONE WITH MIXED PARENTS

How do carpenter bees help farmers pollinate?

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Asked by Wiki User

Buzz pollination and nectar robberies are ways that carpenter bees help farmers pollinate such crops as beans, dogroses, eggplants, maracujas, passion fruits, and tomatoes. The insects in question (Xylocopinae subfamily member) employ the buzzing sounds that they emit to cause dried pollen to drop out of plants so that pollination is more efficient and widespread for the farm in question. They also perfect nectar-robbing whereby they remove excess nectar -- that otherwise may attract ant swarms -- from such long-tubed flowers as penstemons and salvias by "drilling" a hole in floral bases for "drip-sipping."

How do you treat aphids?

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Asked by Wiki User

[1] Beneficial insects such as ladybugs are natural enemies of aphids. So they'll kill them for you. [2] Otherwise, the most life-friendly human interventions are by horticultural and neem oils, and insecticidal soaps and soapy water sprays. If aphids are ravaging edibles, the oils must be applied the day before eating. The soaps can be harvested the same day.

How do you eliminate black bugs from plants brought indoors for the winter?

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Asked by Wiki User

These black flying critters are called fungus gnats and pose a three part problem for you: adult, larvae and eggs. The adults like to lay their eggs in the moist soil of your houseplants and when they hatch the larvae eat the roots. The most non-toxic way of controlling these gnats is to eliminate the adults as they leave the soil and mature from larvae thus preventing them from returning to the soil to lay more eggs. You can use several different non-chemical methods if you have the patience.

I have done this by placing little saucers (I use jar lids) filled with distilled white vinegar around all the houseplants-don't be stingy. The adult gnats are attracted to the liquid and drown. This may take a week to get all the adults as they emerge from eggs and larvae already in the soil.

Another non-toxic method is to spread a minimum of 1/2 inch of sand on top of the soil of all the houseplants. This prevents adults from returning to the soil to lay eggs. Again this may take a week to be rid of all the gnats as their life cycle plays out.

Yellow sticky traps from almost any garden center (or internet order) are another method of catching the adults as they emerge and preventing more eggs from being laid.

Going easy on the water for your plant also should help control the problem. These gnats thrive in wet soil. If your plant can stand a little dry out this may be the easiest method for you. I have put an elephant ear plant infested with these gnats in my hot garage for about a week without water and brought it back in the house gnat free.

Some other methods I've read about but not tried include introducing beneficial nematodes to the soil and using a product called BTI.

What do baby ladybugs eat?

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Asked by Wiki User

leaves and grass just like adult ladybugs

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Sorry- they do not eat leaves and grass- ladybugs are HUNTERS! They eat smaller insect pests, such as aphids. We have ladybugs, lacewings, and praying mantids in our garden. They do a great job of controlling bugs, and we rarely have to use insecticides on our vegetables.

Are boxelder bugs poisonous to fish?

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Asked by Wiki User

No, boxelder bugs are not poisonous to fish.

Specifically, the insect in question (Boisea trivittata) does not poison any potential predator. But it does not represent an attractive meal for any wildlife other than the most desperate and famished. The bug's orange coloring warns wildlife of obnoxious taste.

Is pesticide used for killing insects?

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Asked by Wiki User

Pesticides is the general term that's used to describe the chemicals that are designed to kill pests. The first part of the word, which is 'pest-' in this case, identifies the intended target or victim of the chemical. The second part of the word, '-icide', explains the intended, terminal action to whatever the pest is.

There also are specific chemicals that kill specific pests. For example, 'fungicides' kill fungi. Chemicals identified as 'insecticides' kill insects. Those identified as 'miticides' kill mites. 'Herbicides' kill plants, usually weeds, 'rodenticides' kill rodents, etc.

Will vinegar kill webworms?

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Asked by Wiki User

Yes, vinegar kills ground-dwelling larvae known as sod webworms even though no, it does not do so for tree-dwelling webworms known as tent caterpillars. Sod webworms also may be controlled by such home remedies as insecticidal soaps and soapy water. Organic and non-organic insecticides generally require two or three applications in order to make sure that eggs and hatchlings are eliminated.

Does chocolate contain rodent hair and insect body parts?

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Asked by Wiki User

possible in minute quantities but no more then anything else

Can the green lacewing eat house spiders?

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Asked by Wiki User

A spider which has made it's home across half of my bedroom window (kudos for effort, spider!) caught a shield bug yesterday. It wrapped it up and dragged it to the top of the web which was out of my view, so whilst I am unsure if it actually ate it, it certainly had a go.

How do you get rid of flies outside while barbequing and eating?

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Asked by Wiki User

There are a couple of ways to get rid of flies while barbequing and eating outside. You can spray yourselves with fly repellant to help get rid of the flies. You can also use citronella candles to get rid of insects.

What eats sowbugs?

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Asked by Wiki User

Jerusalem cricket, and red belly snakes. just some of the things that eat sowbugs.

Do Goliath beetles bite?

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Asked by Wiki User

No, fire beetles are a type of beetle that does not bite. They are named as such because they are attracted to fire and need it to breed.

How do you get rid of box elder bug infestation in the home?

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Asked by CrystalLamb

Encouraging natural enemies, excluding female box elder trees (Acer negundo), and growing strong-scented plants are natural ways of eliminating box elder bugs (Boisea trivittata) outdoors. Sealing cracks and fissures and vacuuming colonies off walls are natural ways of eliminating them indoors.

How many flights can a worker bee make in her lifetime?

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Asked by Wiki User

According to the Honey Association, the average honey bee will

actually make only one twelfth of a teaspoon of honey in its lifetime.
A single worker bee will produce around 1/12 tsp of honey in her lifetime. All workers are female, and they only live about 6 - 8 weeks. It takes as many as 10,000 bees taping some 2,000,000 flowers to produce just one pound of honey.

What does a stink bug nest look like?

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Asked by Wiki User

I don't know for sure there is a "queen stink bug" but I seen one at work today we were calling the "queen". It was twice as large as a normal stink bug (brown marmorated beetle) with larger wings, longer legs, longer antennae, but the feature that stuck out the most was a shell-like bit that stuck out in the middle of it's body and had a center row of spikes going down the middle of it. Also, it had a long black "feeder" (or sucker, I'm not an etymologist so I don't know the proper terminology) sticking out of it's "mouth" that was black and curled under it's head. It was big, and gross and when one of my coworkers kicked it, something red came out of it's hind-end and then retracted back inside. I'm 99% sure it was a stink bug, and if it was, it was certainly a bigger, badder version.

Can you kill stink bugs with hot water and soap?

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Asked by Wiki User

No, a soap and water spray does not control stink bugs.

Stink bugs also may be called shield bugs. Specifically, a hardened outer set of wings covers the lighter wings that are used for the bugs' brief, clumsy flights. The homemade soap-and-water spray and the store-bought insecticidal soap may be effective controls of soft-bodied pests, but cannot penetrate the bugs' outer body.

Vacuuming up stink bug bodies and burning or immediately disposing the sealed vacuum bag are among the organic controls inside the house.