"Gene Schurg" wrote in message
hlink.net...
Ray,

I figure that if they eat their fill of mealybugs (and I don't have a huge
infestation) and erradicate them it was worth the $8 I paid.

I hope they do move on after that and go into my garden to eat their fill
of
bugs out there. If a few hang around to keep the mealybugs under control
they are welcome.

Then, especially in this case, it may be well worth putting out some
additional feed for them. If you put out enought that a significant number
of them can be kept happy, they will reproduce and the surplus population
(defined by the number of bugs over the number that can be sustained on the
food you put out) should take care of any pest organisms that find their way
into your facility, and also provide a constant supply of emigrants, who'll
do their duty in your garden on their way to find more food. Surely a
constant supply of insect predators is better than a brief predator
population explosion and crash. It is a question of understanding and
exploiting population dynamics. The supplemental food you put out will
ensure that some will stay around, and as they mate, some of the progeny
will replace deceased "breeding stock" and the rest will emigrate, eating as
they go.

Some species of ant are especially useful (a practice a couple thousand
years old in China and the middle east): carnivorous species, NOT leaf
cutters or ranchers; are extremely effective predators, and being colonial,
dependant on a queen for the integrity and survival of the colony, are
easily managed to obtain effectively pest free crops. The wonderful thing
about ants in this regard is that there are quite a number of suitable
species around the world from pole to pole (or at least arctic circle to
ant-arctic circle), so there is never a need to resort to a non-native
species: one need only to study the ant species (and wasp species if you're
both careful and daring) native to the area where you're growing.

Cheers,

Ted