Beneficial Bees and Parasitic Wasps in the Vegetable Garden

Posted on 15. Jul, 2009 by Tracey in Pests

This is Part 3 in the series of Beneficial Insects and Wildlife in the Vegetable Garden. Please also view Part 1 – Hoverflies, Ladybirds and Lacewings and Part 2 – Earthworms, Beetles, Spiders and Harvestmen if not already done so as they provide valuable information on why these creatures are so beneficial to your vegetable garden.

Honey Bee

Bees

Bumble Bees, Honey Bees and Solitary Bees are the three types of bee that visit our gardens. Bees are extremely beneficial as approx 1 third of the food we eat requires pollinating by bees. Bees have the design makeup to collect pollen in a sack behind their hind legs and collect more pollen than wasps or butterflies in the garden.

Bee’s among other insects pollinate the flowers on our vegetable plot so plants can fruit and seed for the next year.

How to Attract Bees to your Vegetable Garden

Grow vegetables which have flowers that need to be pollinated like runner beans, mange tout, broad beans, tomatoes and cucumbers.
Grow nectar rich plants like red clover, kapweed, foxgloves, cosmos, sedum, scabious, and wildflowers to attract bees.
Build or buy a bee house to attract solitary bees into your garden.

Buzz Links you may find interesting:

Parasitic Wasp

Parasitic Wasps

The story of the lifecycle of a parasitic wasp is a horror film in itself. The word parasite should give it away in its definition: an animal (in this case the wasp) that lives in or on a host (which could be aphids or caterpillars).

Parasitic wasps can be bought from suppliers as a biological pest control. It is a gruesome kind of pest control where the parasitic wasp injects its eggs into the body of an aphid or caterpillar. The wasp can inject hundreds of eggs to kill a community of aphids or caterpillars. The eggs then hatch inside the aphids or caterpillars which kills them from the inside.

National Geographic YouTube Video below is Not for the Faint Hearted but it is Nature’s Way!

I am not a great fan of wasps and the video above freaked me out to say the least! I found myself thinking actually I may just squish off the aphids on my tomatoes or beans from now on because its a lot more sane than the methods of the alien horror movie that is the parasitic wasp! I’m actually feeling sorry for the aphids here!

Attracting Parasitic Wasps to your Garden

Initially they will need a community of aphids or caterpillars to do their worst with,
Parasitic Wasps will tend to live in the same place as the aphid community as long as there is enough flower nectar to sustain their young.
Plant nectar rich plants and flowers surrounding your vegetables including sunflowers, daisies, coneflowers, fennel, yarrow, sweet alyssum, parsley, dill and wildflowers.
Parasitic Wasps also require trees or shrubs for shelter.

Parasitic Wasp links you may find interesting:

Other Beneficial Insects Posts in this Series:-