The butterfles and the bees..

Only last year when we first got our plot did I find out what a pain in the jacksie butterflies can be with regards to noshing on your cabbages.  Pretty as they are, they're a right menace!!

Here's the question.....  Do they get on with bees??  If they don't, this year I'll land a row of something that attracts bees on either side of my cabbages (maybe sweet peas?)..

Any thoughts?  If I'm talking codswollop here then, sorry!  Maybe I'll just have to put a net on them or spray them with soapy water likesensible people do?? 

Maybe I could start them battling each other by smearing honey all over my cabbages.  Surely the butterflies would blame the bees for them getting their feet and wings stuck in the mess and the bees would be correspondingly insensed at this wild and unfounded accusation etc etc etc... then the bees with their stinging power and might would surely win the war and my sticky cabbages wouldn't have holes in them Hurrahh!!

Maybe I could start them battling each other by smearing honey all over my cabbages.  Surely the butterflies would blame the bees for them getting their feet and wings stuck in the mess and the bees would be correspondingly insensed at this wild and unfounded accusation etc etc etc... then the bees with their stinging power and might would surely win the war and my sticky cabbages wouldn't have holes in them Hurrahh!!

 

Maybe I could start them battling each other by smearing honey all over my cabbages.  Surely the butterflies would blame the bees for them getting their feet and wings stuck in the mess and the bees would be correspondingly insensed at this wild and unfounded accusation etc etc etc... then the bees with their stinging power and might would surely win the war and my sticky cabbages wouldn't have holes in them Hurrahh!!

Then the waspies would come along ,cutting out chunks of honeyed cabbage instead of eating caterpillars .

If you manage to suss the cabbage white killer bees you will be rich, i will certainly buy some.

my experience is that the caterpillars aren't as keen on kale, though the whitefly love them!

Hmmm I've heard kale is quite hardy stuff.  I'll have a go at that this year maybe..  Roll on the long summer nights!! 

I planted 3 varieties of kale last year and noticed that the flat leaved Iberian tree kale was much more popular to the CWB's than either the curly kale ore the Tuscan black kale. Mind you whilst the Tuscan has not been touched by the pigeons it was ravished by the whitefly and mealy cabbage aphid, and both the Iberian and the curly have been hammered by the pigeons.

Nets - it's got to be nets!

[Dingblast them blithering critters!!  I tried nets last year and got in a right ol' tangled mess.  Ah well, back to the drawing board!!]

edit to clarify quote