Where to buy soldier beetles

The sides of the body appear rippled or scalloped because of indentations within each body segment. The body is covered with tiny dense bristles and appears velvety. Color is dark brown to gray. The larvae usually spend the winter in damp soil and debris or under loose bark. They are particularly abundant as accidental invaders inside the house in the fall when they are searching for protected locations in which to spend the winter.

Both adults and larvae are predacious and feed on other insects. The adults eat caterpillars, aphids, and other soft-bodied insects and can be important predators. You'll also attract Braconid , Trichogramma and other mini wasps. So small you can barely see them, these tiny creatures ignore humans, and lay their eggs inside or on top of pest caterpillars, parasitizing and killing them and, of course, breeding more caterpillar-controlling wasps.

Those white 'spines' you often see on tomato hornworms are Braconid wasp eggs. Lacewings and mini-wasps can also be purchased mail order with very good results. Generally shipped in the egg stage, you place the little containers in a shady protected spot in the garden. Adult wasps will emerge to do their caterpillar-controlling thing; and those aphid lion lacewing babies will hatch and go looking for aphids. Obviously, locate their containers near the plants with those problems; remember—they need some pests to prey upon to survive!

That water, pollen and nectar will also bring in other beneficial insects, like damsel bugs, big-eyed bugs, minute pirate bugs, assassin bugs which attack adult Japanese beetles! Go online and become familiar with the appearance of these creatures; otherwise you might try and kill your spined soldier bugs, which look a lot like stink bugs the good guys have sharply pointed shoulders or tachnid flies, which closely resemble houseflies the good guys have bristles, and fly in a very un-housefly-like manner.

And what about the fabled praying mantis? These creatures are amazing, but aren't truly beneficial, because they'll eat any insect they can catch, including good ones. Now, if a few appear in your garden, let them be; they're part of the natural world, fun to watch, won't harm your plants and will kill some pests for you. But I strongly recommend against purchasing them mail order; many researchers feel that those non-native mantises will attack and kill the native species when they are released.

Sign up today and be the first to know when a new article is posted and when there are special offers too! We may view bugs as a nuisance because they are eating our plants or intruding in and around our homes.

The Spotted Wing Drosophila or Japanese Beetle are two examples of pesky bugs that can cause damage to our beloved plants. I could go on and on about bugs that cause us major gardening headaches and heartache at times.

If we look at the positive of beneficial bugs, we can help balance the ecosystem without using pesticides or comprising your crop with harmful chemicals. The insects we most want to encourage in our landscapes, of course, are those that help us in some way. And, in my humble opinion, no other group of insects does that better than the predators and parasitoids.

In a healthy garden — one filled with a diversity of plants and devoid of pesticide use — these beneficial insects are capable of consuming tens of thousands of pests every single day. If left to do their work, beneficial insects, such as ladybugs , lacewings, predatory stinkbugs, soldier beetles, tachinid flies , parasitic wasps , and many others, make a significant dent in pest populations. Related post: Rudbeckias — Powerhouse plants. Instead, you should focus on promoting and supporting the beneficial insects already living there by providing them with food and habitat.

Most species of beneficial predatory and parasitic insects require the carbohydrates in nectar, in addition to the protein provided by their prey. Related post: Build a beetle bank or bump. Most beneficial insects do not have the specialized mouthparts needed for accessing nectar from deep or tubular flowers.

Instead, they need to feed from tiny flowers with shallow, exposed nectaries. This means that to support beneficial insects, you need to tailor your plant selections to suit their needs. There are many studies in existence, with many more in-progress, that examine which flowers are the most appropriate nectar sources for predatory and parasitic beneficial insects. In addition to being excellent nectar sources for beneficial insects, most of these plants are also lovely garden specimens.