My garden is mainly a perennial herb permaculture, organic from the start about 29 years ago, and it is teeming with insects of all kinds - so many insects many of which I don't even know by name, or what exactly is the lifestyle they're enjoying here. So I have still lots to learn. I'm hoping you will all share your pics in this thread, of the beneficials in your gardens.

Here is a pic of my new friend in 2019, the copper ground beetle, which I finally took pics of last year so I could look it up on the internet. Identified as the European Ground Beetle or "Bronze Carabid" Carabus nemoralis. Not only an insect eating beneficial, they are beautiful as well! Seems to be distributed around the world, do you have them too?

The Carabid beetles as a group are considered beneficials, and I found this nice writeup here about them with pics of some specimens of different kinds found in Maine:
https://extension.umaine.edu/blueberrie ... ine-farms/

Very cool!

The other day I saw a Wheel Bug in the yard I thought I took a picture but I guess I didn't.

We get lacewings, ladybugs, praying mantises, honeybees, and hover flies. We have a fair amount of other insects, but those are the ones might might recognize as beneficial that come to mind.

worth1 wrote: ↑Fri Jan 03, 2020 3:56 pm The other day I saw a Wheel Bug in the yard I thought I took a picture but I guess I didn't.

Oh wow I just looked that up online - better find one again and post the picture they are super cool looking!
Our Bronze Carabid is over an inch long too. Can't miss em!

Saw a wheel bug a couple years back. Fearsome and astonishing. I looked it up and then bid it welcome.

I have been working on a Friend or Foe page for the last two seasons and I am still editing and researching the critters. When I post that thread I'll drop a link here.

For you Bower =)

Gaillardia - Blanket Flower, grown from seeds =) the bees absolutely love them too

THose bees are gorgeous. Love the orange fur!

If anyone has the invasive brown Chinese lady beetles coming inside and trying to overwinter, they do a great job on any houseplant that has aphids and seem just as good as the red lady bugs.

I will plant anything I see at the nursery with bees on it. I love butterflies but give me a bee any day. I will try the gaillardia.

I particularly like bumblebees but Ive NEVER seen one where I live . Been here 40 years. I did see one about 15 years ago in a public garden in Palm Beach. Next county over.

Bower what kind of camera do you use to get such a great beetle shot? Karen/Dante , your camera is great as well.

Nobody home in this one but pretty sure it belonged to a solitary bee of some sort. I have never sprayed the shrubs with anything. They shelter birds and a myriad of bugs for the birds. The leaves if this shrubby lonicera are quite well used by the end of the season. Someone more particular might want to spray to preserve the foliage but I think it is doing what it was designed to do. Warblers love combing through it in the spring looking for worms in the leaf buds as they unfurl.


This guy is a mystery. Landed in the house so I trapped and released except when I went back later the bug had not let go of the glass.

Growing Coastal wrote: ↑Fri Jan 10, 2020 4:17 pm This guy is a mystery. Landed in the house so I trapped and released except when I went back later the bug had not let go of the glass.

GC I would say that this is some sort of parasitic wasp if I am reading the picture correctly, there is a long oviposter sicking out of the wasps tail. She would use it to position an egg down a grubs hole in timber/soil and effectively lay the egg in the grub, which then becomes food for the young wasp when it hatches.

Yes indeed, that is a parasitoid wasp of some kind. Lovely pic! The longer ovipositors usually mean their prey is deep in the wood. I have a great collection of pics of them from 35 mm days, only a few pics here and there in the digital stuff ([mention]MsCowpea[/mention] I use a Lumix DMC-FZ3 which is an oldie itself, but heavy enough I can take a pic without wobbling too much ).
I see a lot of different parasitoids in my garden, probably due to being surrounded by forest. I noticed they were active around the hazels quite late into the fall with the mild weather this year, but didn't get a pic. They are often noticeable early in spring as well before the bees.
One interesting thing I read about them, they will not cross a large open space. You need hedgerows or shrubs for them to hop across on. So @Coastal, you're doing the right thing for them with those shrubs.

It's way more fun than spraying toxics all over everything when I don't really need to.
I will be using dormant oil on the apple tree though. It just got right out of hand last year with far more harmful insects than the wasps could handle. I was very sad to have to drown the beginnings of a bald faced hornets' nest near the apple tree. Too many people in the vicinity to leave them there after reading the scary warnings online about them.I had noticed that hummingbirds were approaching then leaving their favourite feeder without using it. The hornets had begun their nest under the rain dome over the feeder. I waited til dark and plunged the dome into a bucket of water. Too bad. So, I need to spray the apple tree.

Here's a two-spot ladybug that turned up on the rosemary in my greenhouse early one spring. The two-spot (Adalia) is a native one here. Don't think I've seen the brown one from China that you mentioned [mention]Cole_Robbie[/mention]

Cole_Robbie wrote: ↑Fri Jan 10, 2020 2:34 pm If anyone has the invasive brown Chinese lady beetles coming inside and trying to overwinter, they do a great job on any houseplant that has aphids and seem just as good as the red lady bugs.

I have been told that this is not a native lady beetle.
I found it on the stove top one summer day snacking on a crumb of liverwurst. Do these arrive on plants/produce or are they the sort released to battle aphids on park trees etc.? I do notice a few wintering around some of the upstairs windows that are under an overhang and dry. If I get any house aphids I'll remember your advice!

Growing Coastal wrote: ↑Fri Jan 10, 2020 6:55 pm

Cole_Robbie wrote: ↑Fri Jan 10, 2020 2:34 pm If anyone has the invasive brown Chinese lady beetles coming inside and trying to overwinter, they do a great job on any houseplant that has aphids and seem just as good as the red lady bugs.

I have been told that this is not a native lady beetle.
I found it on the stove top one summer day snacking on a crumb of liverwurst. Do these arrive on plants/produce or are they the sort released to battle aphids on park trees etc.? I do notice a few wintering around some of the upstairs windows that are under an overhang and dry. If I get any house aphids I'll remember your advice!

As far as I know they came in on something, could have been anything, as they crawl into tight spaces trying to overwinter. I get them by the thousands, especially in outdoor storage sheds.

If you have brown stink bugs or whiteflies in your garden, I think those are more accidental gifts from China. Global trade gives us global bugs.

The worst thing about the Chinese Lady Beetle that I have other than swarming into the house is that they do bite. Not often but they do and it hurts too.

Apparently the Chinese Lady Beetle was deliberately introduced for greenhouse aphid control... then they escaped, and started taking over the turf of their native relatives in both Europe and North America. They have some wierd adaptations that makes them come out on top every time.
https://phys.org/news/2013-05-asian-lad ... apons.html