Beneficial Insects

Beneficial insects prey on the pests gardeners detest, keeping insect populations in check. Learn to recognize the top 10 beneficial insects in your garden.

Forget the chemicals, gardeners! Put beneficial insects to work for you and keep your pests under control the natural way. All you have to do is attract the right insects to your garden. Here's how.

These easy recipes will help you attract beneficial insects. Just choose a recipe, mix as directed, and apply it in your garden, and you'll invite ladybugs, lacewings, and other good bugs to your garden. Then they'll stay and feed on your pests.

Organic gardening catalogs sell ladybugs that you can release in your garden to control aphids and other pests. Do ladybug releases work, and how do you release them?

Whether we know it or not, we've declared war on our native bees. Habitat destruction, overdevelopment, and shrinking plant diversity all impact native bee populations. At a time when honeybees are disappearing, we need our native pollinators more than ever. If you're a gardener or homeowner, you can make a difference. Here are 12 things...

Though honeybees get all the credit, native pollen bees do the bulk of the pollination chores in many gardens, parks, and forests. Pollen bees are also called solitary bees; unlike the highly social honeybees, nearly all pollen bees live solitary lives. Native pollen bees work more efficiently than honeybees at pollinating flowers. They...

From the Xerces Society, the book Attracting Native Pollinators: Protecting North America's Bees and Butterflies is a guide for those interested in conserving bees, butterflies, and other flower visitors. Here's my review of this resource.