Dilemma - Can You Help ?

[RobHed]

I have a real dilemma here and hope someone out there in self-sufficientish land can help ! I recently noticed a number of ladybirds on my broad beans and thought 'wow ! natural aphid control !!' then someone directed me to something called the " UK Ladybird Survey team " whoever they are ! Apparently (see below), I have Harlequin ladybirds instead of our native ones. My dilemma is thus :

a) do I keep the ladybirds there and endanger our own varieties, and also keep my aphids under control or do I

b) remove the Harlequins and hope that our own turn up but run the risk of having the aphids multiply again ?

oooh - it's a poser isn't it ?
answers on a (virtual) postcard....

Harlequin Ladybird Survey: Record HAXY26947‏
From: HARLEQUIN-SURVEY@wpo.nerc.ac.uk
Sent: 02 July 2009 21:37:19
To: rob_wiltsher@hotmail.com

Dear Rob Thank you very much for submitting your ladybird record and photo(s). We can confirm that your record is of the Harlequin Ladybird. This is a valuable record for our survey. For a distribution map of harlequin ladybird sightings and for further information, please see http://www.harlequin-survey.org and for information about native ladybird species, please see http://www.ladybird-survey.org We welcome records of any ladybird species, ideally logged online at the websites above. If you would like to download a colour ladybird identification sheet, please click on the link at this website page: http://www.ladybird-survey.org/UKladybi ... ybirds.htm Thanks again and best wishes, UK Ladybird Survey team.

[jim]

Dear RobHed,

An article on the Today Programme earlier in the week advised against squidging harlequins as they will eat aphids -as well as just about anything they encounter. The reasoning was that as they are similar looking to native species we could end up mistakenly exterminating our own.

I'm prettycertain that the bbc website links to Radio 4 Today would allow you to listen to the article yourself,

Love and Peace
Jim

[lazyspice]

To be honest, I'd be grateful for whatever ladybirds I could tempt into my garden at the moment as everything's covered in greenfly So far we have one solitary little soldier trying to hold them at bay!

[MKG]

The general advice from those in the know is not to bother about them - they're here and they're here to stay (rather like the signal crayfish). It isn't yet known what kind of effect (if any) they'll have on indigenous species.

Mike

[Millymollymandy]

The one I see the most often, and often indoors, is a yellow one with tiny black spots, which isn't shown in that list. Must be a European mainland one.

That's a really interesting website so thanks for that link.

[RobHed]

Thanks very much chaps - and you're welcome, MillyMollyMandy !

[contadino]

Harlequins are like ladybirds on steroids. They get thru aphids at a staggering pace, but will also chow down on whitefly. They're great. Leave them be. Harlequins are run of the mill here, but we still get normal ladybirds, so the talk of 'wiping out native species' is (IMHO) a little OTT.

[cochlear_nerve]

There was an article in The Guardian this week, which advised against "vigilante" action.

[Peggy Sue]

I guess you are right, they are here to stay. I've been having the same dilemma, we have loads of ladybirds and a few I think are harlequinn....but we also have a massive greenfly year! I guessed the extra ladybirds were a result of this and have zapped the whitefly already for me

There are also some ladybird sized creatures which seem to have a stripe rather than spots, they looked bad news so I squashed them, and they squash to a yellow gunge

Are these friend or foe does anyone know?