How much do lady beetles love aphids?
It's love at first bite. And it amounts to some 50 bites a day.
The lady beetle, commonly known as a ladybug, is a legend when it comes to its voracious appetite. It eats some 50 aphids a day--a 50-course meal--and in its lifetime, it can polish off a whopping 5000 aphids.
No wonder we call them beneficial insects.
Right now they're devouring an army of oleander aphids that are infesting our narrow-leafed milkweed, Asclepias fascicularis. The battle begins.
When the monarchs arrive to lay their eggs, the aphids will be there. So will the lady beetles. And probably some milkweed bugs. The predators and the prey.
If you grow milkweed, you'll get aphids. Some monarch butterfly enthusiasts kill the aphids with a soapy water mixture, but you can manually squish them and dislodge them with water.
Don't do this, though, if there are monarch eggs and caterpillars. Monarch moms, however, seem to avoid laying their eggs on heavy aphid infestations.
"Alhough aphids seldom kill a mature plant, the damage they do and unsightly honeydew they generate sometimes warrant control," according to the UC Statewide Integrated Pest Management Program (UC IPM). "...Most insecticides will destroy beneficial insects along with the pest." On mature trees, such as in citrus orchards, aphids and the honeydew they produce can provide a valuable food source for beneficial insects."
Read more about aphids and how to control them on the UC IPM website.