Extension Master GardenerSM Volunteers of Buncombe County

Beneficial Insects

Pollinators and Your Vegetable Garden: A Win-Win Deal!

Have you heard news reports that bees—especially honey bees—are in trouble? Media coverage often explains the vital role that bees play in our food production, attributing “every third bite” to these industrious creatures! There is so much more to know—and you can observe much of it in your own vegetable garden.

Squash Blossom & Honey Bee_Livin' Spoonful_CC BY-NC-ND 2.0_Flickr
Honey bee pollinating squash blossom

So, what is pollination? Plants, like animals, share a single purpose: to reproduce and create the next generation of their species. Unlike animals, plants cannot go in search of mates, so they need the help of pollinators to move pollen from the male part (anthers) of their flowers to the female parts (stigmas). Pollination is the first step in plants’ reproductive cycles, which ends with seeds that contain the makings of new life—the next generation!

So, what does the bee get out of this deal? While the wind, other insects, and even mammals, such as bats pollinate some plants, bees are the most well-known because they feed only on flowers. Yes, bees are vegetarians! They get carbohydrates from nectar and protein and lipids (fats) from pollen. Plants often produce nectar (the sugary syrup that plants make to bait pollinators) at the base of their flowers where pollinators must brush against the pollen-laden anthers and then inadvertently transfer it to a sticky stigma. But bees are not accidental pollinators. They forage for protein, carrying it either in the pollen baskets on their rear legs or in the scopa beneath their abdomens.

And, what do WE get out of this pollination deal? That’s easy: fresh, delicious, and nutritious food. And more than the food, we also gain an understanding and appreciation for nature’s beauty and complexity with real hands-on learning. Watch a squash bee stir early one morning after overnighting at the base of a bright golden flower on your pumpkin vine. See and hear a big fuzzy bumble bee grasp a tomato blossom, vibrate her wing muscles to generate buzzing at the perfect frequency to cause that plant’s anthers to release its pollen. Notice how the ground-nesting bumble bees and Southeastern blueberry bees pollinate blueberries, while the honey bee and the carpenter bee cut slits in the blueberry blossom petals to rob the nectar without touching the pollen!

Knowing more about pollination can help make you a more successful gardener and a better steward of the land.

Article written by Diane Almond, Extension Master GardenerSM Volunteer.

Beneficial Insects: Attract the Good, the Voracious, and the Ugly to Your Garden

Early on, I learned that nature has many solutions to insect problems. My father, an entomologist, and grandfather, a horticulturalist, used chemicals only when all else failed—a philosophy that flew in the face of America’s love affair with pesticides in the 1960s. Today we call this approach to gardening Integrated Pest Management (IPM). 

Integrated Pest Management
According to Craig Mauney, Extension Specialist, IPM involves looking for long term solutions, not short-term fixes. “This requires us to be highly engaged gardeners,” Mauney says. “By that I mean we prevent problems by properly planting the right plants. We look for evidence of insect damage as plants grow and observe patterns of plant decline. When there are problems, we use mechanical, cultural, and biological tools first. Chemicals are a last resort.” 

Biological Management
North Carolina State University’s (NCSU) Extension Gardener Handbook defines biological management as “the process of reducing a pest population by using predators, parasitoids (often called parasites), or disease organisms that ordinarily occur in nature.” Why? Because in the great web of life, plant-feeding insects are food for other insects.

Matching Predator and Pest
Sounds good, but how does the home gardener know which beneficial insects to encourage? Good places to start are the Buncombe County Extension Master GardenerSM Volunteers Helpline (828-255-5522) and NCSU’s Cooperative Extension website. Common beneficial predators in western North Carolina gardens include: ground beetles, ladybird beetles, lacewings, wheel bugs, hoverflies, and predatory mites. These active insects have long life-cycles and prey on smaller, weaker insects, usually devouring them in one gulp. 

Ladybug_Hippodamia-tredecimpunctata_Gilles-San-Martin_CC-BY-SA-2.0_Flickr
Ladybird or ladybug beetle devours aphids

Ladybird or Ladybug Beetle
According to the University of Florida’s Entomology Department, the name of these familiar red and black insects “has been used in England for more than 600 years…The lady for whom they were named was the Virgin Mary, and common names in other European languages have the same association (the German name Marienkafer translates to Marybeetle or ladybeetle).” How can the ladybird better help your garden? Some of the pests they help control include aphids, scales, whiteflies, and mites. 

Lacewing_Nell Kelley_CC BY-NC 2.0_Flickr
Green lacewing

Lacewings
Lacewings are distinguished by roof-like, transparent wings that are held over the insect’s body. Known as “aphid lions,” the larvae of the lacewing emerge hungry and voraciously feed on aphids and other soft-bodied insects, such as mealybugs, scales, thrips, whiteflies, spider mites, leafhopper nymphs, and caterpillar eggs. According to Michigan State University, “natural control of aphids is possible when there is one (lacewing) larva per 70 aphids.” Not bad for an insect that grows to just a half-inch long! These beneficial insects are particularly sensitive to pesticides, however!

Wheel Bugs or Assassin Bugs
We know them as those sinister-looking, long-snouted, brown insects that appear in great numbers each spring, often in places where we don’t want them, like our homes and cars. One place we do want them is in the garden. These predators prefer dining on soft-bodied insects such as caterpillars, moths, aphids, and small beetles. Wheel bugs are not aggressive, but they can give you a painful bite if handled improperly. If you have to pick one up, use a paper towel to gently remove it to the great outdoors where it can protect your garden.

Syrphid fly_Debbie Ross_NCState_AgExtAgent
Syrphid fly or hover fly

Hoverflies or Syrphid flies
They look like wasps but they’re really flies. The name—hover fly—comes from the way they hang in the air during flight. In their adult form, they are pollinators. In their larval form, they are predators. The larvae are often found among aphid colonies, one of their favorite foods. These doubly beneficial insects are sensitive to several broad-spectrum pesticides, especially organophosphates (OP) such as parathion and malathion.

Promoting Beneficial Insects
Want to attract beneficial insects? An important key is to plant so that there are blooms year-round in the garden. Opt for native plants that flower and include both flowering annuals and perennials to feed beneficial insects.

Article written by Janet Moore, Extension Master GardenerSM Volunteer.

We are ALL keepers of the bees.

 

Honeybee skepThe first settlers who brought honey bee hives in woven skeps to the colonies from Europe in the early 1600s could never have imagined today’s commercial beekeeping industry. Now more than a million hives crisscross the country on flatbed semis, providing essential pollination services so that the resulting produce (not unlike the bees) can be shipped to consumers from coast to coast.

Today, honey bees are considered “livestock”, and most are managed intensively by commercial, migratory beekeepers who work to keep up with the demand of equally intensive, industrial agriculture. The world’s largest pollination event is in California each February to March where more than 1,600,000 hives pollinate the state’s 800,000 + acres of almonds.

Nor would the settlers have predicted that bees, both managed honeybees and the 4000 species of native bees, would be unable to find enough food in a vast country filled with such rich and abundant flora.

While we cannot turn back the clock, we can help by taking important action. To repeat Dr. Marla Spivak’s urgent plea, grow more flowers, including vines, ground covers, perennials, annuals, shrubs and trees. Plant mostly natives since they thrive where they evolved, and support the pollinators with whom they co-evolved. Cultivate without pesticides.

I recommend you plant flowers everywhere you can imagine – containers on apartment decks, in landscapes where you work, live, worship, play, go to school, and shop. Plant flowers along roadsides and in empty lots.

If you cannot or do not want to plant flowers, here are some other things you can do:
• Understand where and how your food is produced. From the seeds that are planted in California’s Central Valley or in Peru or China to the produce at your grocery store, learn what happens along the way. Consider purchasing locally produced food that is grown with more sustainable practices. Better yet, grow at least some of your own food. Join or start a community garden.
• Support you local beekeeper and buy real, natural, local honey. Like vintage wine, local honey is a unique reflection of a specific place in time. Each of my honey harvests is a taste ‘picture’ of the flowers that bloomed during that season within just a mile or two of our farm. I even label it: “A Taste of Summer 2015”, or “Appalachian Spring 2014”. The French use a hard-to-translate word to describe this utterly unique characteristic, “terroir”.
• Reduce the size of your lawn. This bears repeating from an earlier post. Author of the groundbreaking, prophetic book, “Bringing Nature Home”, Doug Tallamy urges all of us, along with the landscaping industry, to upend the standard use of the lawn as the default element, with plants added to it. Instead, put a variety of elements into the yard (places to retreat, to sun, to have shade, to play, to picnic, to grow food and cut flowers) and let the lawn be the green carpeted walkway that leads us to these destinations and defines borders.

A pocket meadow supports life.
A pocket meadow supports life.

• Reduce or eliminate use of toxins, not just pesticides in the garden and landscape, but all toxins. Our soils and waters, and even our bodies and the bodies of many animals are becoming contaminated with poisons in so many of our household products. Two chemicals in the news and generating much controversy: glyphosate (active ingredient in Roundup) and the family of neonicitinoids. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) plans to start testing certain foods for residues of glyphosate, the world’s most widely used weed killer (1.4 billion pounds/year) after the World Health Organization’s cancer experts in 2015 declared the chemical a probable human carcinogen. Neconicitinoids, often called “neonics” are systemics. The toxins are taken up by a plant through water in the soil and circulated through the vascular system, showing up not only on the foliage (the leaves those young monarch caterpillars eat) but also in pollen and nectar. Neonics, including imidicloprid, are active ingredients in many of the lawn and garden chemicals most home owners purchase, and are used by most large producers of bedding plants sold by many nurseries and garden centers. A recent, even-handed summary of scientific studies, published by The Xerces Society, looked at the impact of neonics on beneficial insects, especially bees. The full 44-page report as well as a 2-page summary are available for free at:
http://www.xerces.org/neonicotinoids-and-bees/
• Educate yourself and others. Ask questions, share the answers and encourage folks to continue learning and understanding the complex issues around pollination. Did you know that a swarm of honey bees is nothing to fear?

Relax: Swarming is how honey bee colonies reproduce. No swarming would mean no honey bees. Swarms of honey bees rarely sting since they have no home to protect, and because they are engorged with honey (they packed before they left their old home). Many swarms do not survive in the wild and beekeepers are eager to rescue them. Call your County Extension offices which generally have lists of area beekeepers wanting swarms.
Relax: Swarming is how honey bee colonies reproduce. No swarming would mean no honey bees. Swarms of honey bees rarely sting since they have no home to protect, and because they are engorged with honey (they packed before they left their old home). Many swarms do not survive in the wild and beekeepers are eager to rescue them.

In fact, this crowd of bees is an old queen with half her original colony in search of a new home. She left soon-to-be-born daughter queens and the other half of the colony’s population back in the original home. One colony becoming two. Swarming is how honey bees procreate, and is the goal of every healthy colony – to get big and strong enough in mid to late spring to be able to split into two colonies. Often the cast swarm doesn’t make it through the first winter. If you see a swarm, call the Extension office. They will give you a beekeeper contact who will come to the rescue. Beekeepers love swarms.
• Look for more ways to connect, or re-connect, to the natural world. We, all of us – plants, animals and those animals we call “people” – are in this together.

Written by Diane Almond, Extension Master Gardener Volunteer

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Buncombe County Extension Office
49 Mount Carmel Road
Asheville, NC 28806
Helpline 828-255-5522

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