A little more info – last year, these aphids completely covered my swamp and showy milkweeds (*incarnata* & *speciosa*), and it pretty much stayed that way the whole summer. This year, however, I’ve noticed that they’ll cover a branch and several days later they’ll be gone (with these brown husks remaining). The aphids will then move to another area on the plants and will then be gone sometime later…
One day, I saw a small black-ish wasp (I couldn’t really identify it) going around and “stinging” a few aphids. I’m assuming this is some type of parasitoid wasp? Are they able to kill hundreds of aphids at a time? I haven’t seen any lady beetles/bugs around so I’m curious if anyone has an idea what would be killing this aphids.
Just to be clear – I *love* wasps and other native insects and am really happy that something seems to be controlling the non-native aphids (I just want to know what it is haha).
zestyspleen
Usually you can just spray both sides of the leaves frequently with water to get rid of aphids. Soapy water is better but idk if that could harm caterpillars and whatnot so water is safer.
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A little more info – last year, these aphids completely covered my swamp and showy milkweeds (*incarnata* & *speciosa*), and it pretty much stayed that way the whole summer. This year, however, I’ve noticed that they’ll cover a branch and several days later they’ll be gone (with these brown husks remaining). The aphids will then move to another area on the plants and will then be gone sometime later…
One day, I saw a small black-ish wasp (I couldn’t really identify it) going around and “stinging” a few aphids. I’m assuming this is some type of parasitoid wasp? Are they able to kill hundreds of aphids at a time? I haven’t seen any lady beetles/bugs around so I’m curious if anyone has an idea what would be killing this aphids.
Just to be clear – I *love* wasps and other native insects and am really happy that something seems to be controlling the non-native aphids (I just want to know what it is haha).
Usually you can just spray both sides of the leaves frequently with water to get rid of aphids. Soapy water is better but idk if that could harm caterpillars and whatnot so water is safer.