Beneficial Tree Insects That You Shouldn’t Kill
While insects get their fair share of bad rep, did you know there are so many beneficial tree insects? To promote a healthy environment for your tree, lawn, or gardens, there are a few categories of insects that are necessary. You can reduce the need for pesticides by ensuring you have the main categories of beneficial insects in your tree or garden.
Keep on reading to learn more about all the beneficial tree insects and how they promote tree health. At Trusty Tree Services, we are readily available to assist you with all of your pest issues with our exceptional Edmonton arborists.
Pollinating Insects Help Promote Tree Reproduction, Fruiting, and Flowering
When you think of pollinating insects, the first thought that comes to mind is likely bees. While honey bees are significant pollinating insects that are beneficial to your yard, there are other insects that are excellent pollinators! Examples of pollinating insects include:
- Bees: All bees are good! Never hurt bees, as they help your fruit trees thrive and are needed in any outdoor environment. Pollinating insects ensure your tree or garden can repopulate and flower! Go the extra mile and lay out a shallow dish filled with rocks and water to help them hydrate. It’s important to be careful, though, because they can easily drown.
- Flies, butterflies, and moths: Contrary to popular belief, flies, butterflies, and moths all play some kind of role in the process of pollination. While they are not as effective as the bees, they are not a threat to your garden if seen buzzing or flying around. When their eggs begin to override your tree, you may have a problem.
It’s important to be wary of excess flies, butterflies, and moths in your yard; however, they overall promote a healthy environment for your tree to thrive. A pollinator insect plays a major role in the process of pollination, an essential process for plant reproduction. As a flower produces pollen, the pollinator will transport the pollen to another flower, allowing for the flower’s seed fertilization. To ensure your tree flowers or fruits, you need these pollinating insects to boost your tree’s fruiting process.
Other Beneficial Tree Insects:
- The predator insects: Having predators like spiders, ladybeetles, and ladybugs in your tree and garden ensures you have proper population control. They eat away all the bad bugs like it’s their job.
- The parasitic insects: As an extremely voracious type of predator, parasitic insects are crucial for your tree’s health. These larvae feed on the harmful insects, making them even more aggressive forms of pest control than traditional predators.
Predator Insects Promote Healthy Population Levels
While given a daunting name, predatory insects are extremely beneficial to the biodiversity of your tree and garden, so think twice before you start killing predator insects. Focused largely on eating other insects, they don’t harm your tree or garden and instead kill off the insects that will eat the leaves or bark on your tree. As a natural form of pest control, these beneficial insects prey on other insects to help keep insect populations in check. Some of the primary examples of beneficial predator insects in your yard include:
- Ladybugs: Ladybugs, also known as ladybird beetles, are your lovely aphid eaters! Let them stay in your tree or garden so they can munch away at their favourite meal.
- Praying mantids: Similar to the ladybug, praying mantids love feasting on aphids and other smaller insects.
- Green lacewing larvae: Don’t be threatened by these insects, as green lacewing larvae are an all-in-one pest control solution, eating aphids, spider mites, white flies, caterpillars, and insect eggs.
- Spiders: Spiders are your trusted predator, ensuring to eat up aphids, mosquitoes, and other harmful insects.
- Ground beetles: As the name suggests, these beetles don’t usually climb onto surfaces unless they are foraging for food; they are crucial for the soil of your tree. Eating up aphids, fly eggs, slugs, and snails, think about leaving ground beetles right where they are.
- Assassin bugs: As the name suggests, they are excellent insect killers, making them a reliable predator that can help control the health of your tree.
These predatory bugs play a significant role in keeping pest populations to a minimum and preventing infestations. Don’t be threatened by their presence in your tree or garden, and let them help you create a pest-free outdoor space.
Parasitic Insects Lay Their Eggs on Harmful Pests
Similar to predator insects, parasitic insects prey on other insects; however, they are excellent at eating both the adults and larvae. Parasitic and braconid wasps lay their eggs inside the eggs of their predators, making their larvae ready to eat away any of their predators. Once the eggs hatch, these larvae are voracious and can eat away any insects that are harmful to your trees. Parasitic insects that are beneficial to your outdoor environment include parasitic wasps and braconid wasps.
While they are scary predators even for humans, leave them be and let them do their thing! Unlike other species of wasps, parasitic and braconid wasps do not swarm in large colonies and therefore do not need to build a nest. Instead, they lay their eggs inside other insect nests.
Call Trusty Tree To Get Expert Pest Control Services from Our Professional Arborists
So now that you have learned more about the good bugs in your yard, you can have a healthy tree and yard. But it’s important to be wary of any bad bugs in your garden too. Do you suspect that you have a pest issue? Whether you have excess scale insects, bark beetles, or mealybugs, our certified arborist is here to handle all of your tree and plant pests with our professional pest management services. At Trusty Tree Services, we are dedicated to helping homeowners have healthy and beautiful outdoor spaces, ensuring enhanced curb appeal and proper growth of your plants, flowers, shrubs, and trees.
Call us today to get reliable pest control services from our professional arborists.