Beneficial Bug ID: Mantis eating cucumber beetle
Jason Byrne
8 years ago
Featured Answer
Sort by:Oldest
Comments (7)
Jason Byrne
8 years agoRelated Discussions
Kaolin Clay for flea/cucumber/Japanese beetles, squash borers
Comments (38)Spraying plants with bug juice, or leaving a can of dead bugs on display, can't hurt, and probably helps. I had read that the JB sends a scout and then the scout releases a scent telling others it's a good spot. My experience last year goes along with that. I was in the garden, one arrived and I hadn't yet set up my can. I was working on putting my glove on, but before I could, two more came, started sexing on a leaf, and then a bunch more piled on. I ran and set up the can and started flicking them in and kept the can at hand, but also on display in case there was some kind of scent of death. The first year I had JB, I got the scout and stepped on him, then left his body on the ground. I definitely think there's something to this, although I've never been able to catch cucumber beetles quickly enough. They're tricky....See Morecucumber beetles
Comments (18)Bon, I am sure that the cucumber beetles transmit lots of diseases. The main ones that they usually transmit to cucurbits are bacterial wilt and cucumber mosaic virus. They also often transmit several different virus infections to beans. That's the huge issue with cucumber beetles and the only solution I know of is to grow under row covers that exclude the cucumber beetles or to spray the cucumber plants with Spinosad or some other botanical (organic) insecticide like Pyganic or Neem. Or, you can try growing a cucumber variety that has been bred to have a high tolerance of bacterial wilt. Most years I have cucumber beetles all over the place from February or March through about November. This year, I didn't see a single one until August. It was wonderful, and it likely never will happen again. While they weren't here earlier, they're here now and I was not happy to see them appear. In the absence of cucumbers, the cucumber beetles will visit just about any other plant you have. I just hate them. Some beneficial insects such as green lacewings, lady bugs and spined soldier bugs feed upon the cucumber beetle eggs or larva and that will help control the cucumber beetles, but here in our rural area, more just fly in every day so you have to have tons of beneficials to maintain any control of the highly mobile cucumber beetles. Birds and bats will eat cucumber beetles, so putting up bird houses or a bat house can help attract those predators to your garden. I also have a birdbath and bird feeders near my garden to attract more songbirds. My garden is full of birds right now, and I think they are feasting on grasshoppers and other pests....maybe that includes cucumber beetles. Dragonflies and damselflies eat lots of flying insects, but mostly small ones like mosquitoes and midges. They also will eat craneflies/mayflies, some butterflies and moths, and even smaller dragonflies or damselflies. Dragonflies are one of my favorite predators and because we have several ponds (albeit they have mostly been empty this year), we generally have tons of dragonflies and damselflies. They fly back and forth from the ponds to the garden all day long, and often sit on the tomato cages or trellises for watching for insects to prey upon. Dawn...See MoreSquash Bug & Cucumber Beetle Alert
Comments (8)Every now and then I have a year with no squash bugs at all. The last year like that here may have been 2011. I have no idea why they don't find us some years because they do show up most years. I hate squash bugs but I'll try to control them for at least a while so we can harvest and eat squash. Once I have lots of squash in the freezer, I tend to just let the plants die. There's only so much time available in the summer, and I have lots of other ways to spend my time that do not involve scouting the underside of every squash leaf for squash bug eggs. Maybe someone with a smaller garden has the time and patience to do that, but I don't. Some years I grow the plants under floating row cover and some years I don't. The row cover will help protect the plants from pests, but I still have to lift it and hand-pollinate the blossoms and while a gardener is doing that, the squash bugs and squash vine borers can sneak onto the plants. I love summer squash, but the constant onslaught of squash bugs and squash vine borers can make it very challenging to get a good harvest. I do grow some C. moschata summer squash varieties with excellent tolerance of/resistance to squash vine borers, but the squash bugs attack those plants as much as they attack the others. One advantage of the C. moschata squash varieties is that they grow so rampantly they often can outgrow the diseases spread by the squash bugs....See MoreBug ID... Beneficial or Not?
Comments (4)Yikes, I hope they aren't blister beetles! They do look different than the images I found, but I haven't had any luck matching them up with anything else either. I will keep watching them, thanks for the help. I didn't want to spray or dust anything that would kill the LBs, there a whole lot of those on all of my corn plants....See Moreagardenstateof_mind
8 years agozeedman Zone 5 Wisconsin
8 years agodave_f1 SC, USDA Zone 8a
8 years agorhizo_1 (North AL) zone 7
8 years agoJason Byrne
8 years ago
Related Stories
EARTH DAYHow to Help Your Town’s Beneficial Birds and Bugs
Make a habitat using local materials to provide a home to the creatures that help our gardens
Full StoryGARDENING AND LANDSCAPINGBid Bad Garden Bugs Goodbye and Usher In the Good
Give ants their marching orders and send mosquitoes moseying, while creating a garden that draws pollinators and helpful eaters
Full StoryGARDENING GUIDESAttract Thynnid Wasps With Summer-Flowering Native Plants
These beneficial insects will hunt damaging beetle grubs in your lawn
Full StoryGARDENING AND LANDSCAPINGBe a Citizen Scientist to Help Wildlife, Learn and Have Fun Too
Track butterflies, study birds, capture stars ... when you aid monitoring efforts, you’re lending Mother Nature a hand
Full StoryFALL GARDENING7 Reasons Not to Clean Up Your Fall Garden
Before you pluck and rake, consider wildlife, the health of your plants and your own right to relax
Full StoryEARTH DAYHow to Design a Garden for Native Bees
Create a garden that not only looks beautiful but also nurtures native bees — and helps other wildlife in the process
Full StoryGARDENING FOR BUTTERFLIESGardening for the Bees, and Why It’s a Good Thing
When you discover how hard bees work for our food supply, you may never garden without them in mind again
Full StoryEDIBLE GARDENSGarden BFFs? Why Your Vegetables Are Begging for Companion Plants
Foster friendships among plants for protection from pests, pollination support and color camaraderie
Full StoryGARDENING GUIDES6 Plants That Beat Butterfly Bush for the Wildlife Draw
It's invasive, a nonnative and a poor insect magnet. Check out these better alternatives to butterfly bush in the garden
Full StoryGARDENING GUIDESLessons in the Rewards of Selfless Gardening
Let go of gardening for your own vision and watch the garden’s own true vision come forth
Full StorySponsored
dave_f1 SC, USDA Zone 8a