"Sacha" wrote in message
...
On 2/6/04 11:58, in article , "Jane
Ransom" wrote:

In article , Jeff
writes
Hi.

What insects will eat greenfly (without then becoming pests
themselves)?
I know about ladybirds, but are there any others?

Hover flies.
A hover fly can lay several hundreds of eggs on a plant and each larvae
will eat up to 400 greenfly during its life time.

I think that wasps also eat greenfly but am not 100% sure.

Some urglers recommend (swear that the problem disappears) dotting
those bird peanut feeders round the garden. The theory is that a bird
will have a coupe of caterpillars for starters, a few peanuts and then a
few dozen green/black/white fly for pudding!!

It works for us, I must say. We have feeders in the garden and several in
the greenhouses and both are alive with birds. We have wrens,
blackbirds,
blue tits, chaffinches and sparrows nesting in the greenhouses and all
those
plus thrushes in the garden. They feed on the peanuts in winter and
adults
will take them now, too but we often see them with their beaks stuffed
with
'wrigglers' to take to their babies.

if you can see them wriggling, then either your birds are remarkably tame
and let you get within 6 inches, or the wrigglers are not greenfly!

--
Tumbleweed

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