Tale of the Aphids
Something pretty cool has taken place in the garden this week!
About two weeks ago I noticed that my bee balm had become infested with aphids. The ants were crawling up and down harvesting the honeydew that they seem to love.
I have been reading a book by Jessica Walliser called Attracting Beneficial Bugs To You Garden: A Natural Approach to Pest Control. In that book she talks in particular about an aphid infestation that had happened on one of her trees; and instead of trying to spray she decided to wait and let nature do what it was designed to do.
I looked at all these aphids covering my bee balm and decided since it wasn't one of my tomato or pepper plants I would wait it out and see what would happen.
About a week went by and I started noticing more lady bug activity.
A few days later a spotted a couple of white, furry looking insects. I initially thought they were mealybugs so I squished them, oops. When I went out the next day and saw a white bug on each of the stalks of bee balm I decided to do research on what was this insect. Much to my delight it was actually a mealybug destroyer larvae - not a mealybug. The mealybug destroyer, Cryptolaemus montrouzieri, are in the ladybug group of beetles. I came to learn that the mealybug destroyer's favorite meal is mealybugs. If there isn't a huge population of mealybugs it will feast on its next choice- aphids.
I sat there and watched each mealybug destroyer larvae feast on aphids. Within one day the aphid population on my bee balm was a quarter of what it had been.
If I had rushed to spray the aphids I would've missed this experience. I'm so glad that I waited it out!
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