[lentil987]

Hi,

I have just come back from the allotment and I notice loads of ants eating black aphids on my broad beans.
I was wondering - is this good or bad. I am happy the ants are eating the black fly things but do I need to worry that I have ants or are ants one of the allotment friends?

Just wondering - I wouldnt want to kill them if they are doing a good job.

Thanks

[Jake]

I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong but its a bad thing. The ants actually feed off sugery stuff that the aphids produce and don't actually kill them.

Kill the aphids, kill em all :twisted:

[comic_muse]

I don't think the ants are really here nor there....it's the darned Blackfly which are the issue.  The Ants certainly don't 'control' the Blackfly, they farm them.  I've just 'topped' my Beans out tonight because the fly is just starting to show.  Topping them stops the sap drwaing into the softest part of the plant.....they'll still get onto the flower's & flower stalks but it helps to 'disinterest them'.  There are some 'soapy solutions' you can spray on if they're really bad but you can 'rub them out' too if your'e careful, but once they're bad....they're a real pain to get rid of & their sticky, sugary discharges get really 'manky' & can make the plants quite 'sick'.

[GrannieAnnie]

Well, I don't like the ones that are trying to suck the nectar out of my courgette flowers!!!!

[Oliver]

Ants certainly don't 'control' the Blackfly.

(Have just read this post  .. been spending too much time on my roof)
disagree with that quote - ants DO control the black fly - they farm them. If you see ants running up and down a plant you can bet your bottom dollar there are black or greenfly somewhere! So get rid of the ANTS too.
Its either ants and blackfly or crops!

Have seen ants bring a fat black or greenfly to a juicy plant and stroke it to produce the many babies and then the honeydew. As Comic-muse says, this is the problem because the more blacklfy the more honeydew, round in a vicious circle.

Honey dew falls on other plants and can encourage sooty mould (black patches on the sticky stuff) and so the plants look awful, and some even die.
If you can't control them, thats the end of the crop - she dug up all her broadbeans the other day because the greenfly just got out of hand ...  :cry:

[Oliver]

trying to suck the nectar out of my courgette flowers!

Are these tiny beetle like creatures - they crawl all over the place and actually fly. They also colonise pale coloured sweet peas?
If so, they are pollen beetles and are not a problem, apart from if you pick sweetpeas to take indoors they go EVERYWHERE when they abandon the sweetpea. Sweep them up and evict them!
Aphids (black- and greenfly) have soft ridged bodies and tend to sit in a tight group on one spot (often attended by ants ) , although some have disphanous wings and so migrate to a new plant ...

[Jake]

Lots of stuff about bugs

Do you know anything about flea beetle Oliver? I've got them on my brussels but they don't seem to be doing much harm.

[Oliver]

Lots of stuff about bugs - fleabeetle

Yes! they are a real pain. There are sevaral kinds and they can fly. their favourite foods are brassicas, radishes and mustard.
They are small shiny things and jump like fleas when disturbed. They will fly long distances to get their grub. They eat lacy holes in rocket, radishes, swede and turnip leaves, mustards (particularly in dry weather)and brassicas (when they are young - so encourage brassicas to grow fast because when they get a bit tough the fleabeetles don't eat them).

They can kill seedlings with their attention, but generally they just make salad stuffs look unsightly. The rocket and mustards still taste ok, but they look horrible!
The other things are ok because their roots are generally not affected and one eats the roots!

CONTROL: she sows her 'mixed leaves' (giant red mustard, Indian mustard, rocket etc which they (fleabeetles)  LOVE) and then immediately covers the whole lot with fleece.  (The fleece is about a yard wide and the sowing - 2 rows thinly sown - is about 10 in apart). The edges of the fleece are weighted down with metal poles and just left. The seeds are watered regularly through the fleece, and the crop, which appears very quickly, is watered often too. But the fleece is only removed to harvest stuff. The plants are strong enough to push the fleece up as they grow. She sows another 2 rows and covers them with fleece about 5 weeks after the first. When she starts harvesting them the others are pulled up.
Keep the site clean,  remove leaves and dead plant matter so they have nowhere to lay their eggs.

So if you grow salads, try growing 'sacraficial' radishes and stuff etc on either side of the salads and maybe the beetles will eat them! So the theory goes.She would still cover them though. That way you can be almost sure of protecting your stuff from the lacemakers!
Hope this helps! O If you look at her 'personal gallery', Picture 6 you will see a sort of white hump - those are her salads!

[hermon]

hunt around and try and find lady bird lavea or even a lady bird place it onto of the black fly and see if that helps.