Fact Sheets - Beneficial Insects

Aphids are prey to many predatory insects, spiders, and parasitoids. Healthy predatory populations keep aphid populations low, which can reduce or eliminate the need for chemical controls.

A beginner's guide to help identify common native bees in Utah, including social and solitary bees. The exotic western honey bee and bee "mimics" are also included, as well as information on human impacts on bees and what you can do to promote bee health....

There are many beneficial beetles in Utah besides lady beetles or ladybugs. Beetles can significantly reduce common insect and weed problems and in some cases eliminate the need for chemical control. Examples of beneficial beetles include: ground beetles,...

Big-eyed bugs are generalist predators that consume a wide variety of small prey including insect eggs, mites, aphids, and small caterpillars. These beneficial bugs can be found in landscapes, gardens, and many vegetable and field crops.

Damsel bugs are generalist predators that consume a wide variety of prey including insect eggs, caterpillars, mites, and aphids. These beneficial bugs can be found in landscapes, gardens, and many field crops.

Lacewings and antlions are insects in the order Neuroptera. There are over 4,000 different species of lacewings and antlions throughout the world. In general, the adults have soft bodies, long antennae, and prominent eyes. Also, lacewings and antlions

Mantids refer to an entire predatory group of insects in the order Mantodea. The term “mantis” or “praying mantis” actually refers to a particular genus of mantids. Therefore, only some mantids belong to the genus Mantis. There are about 2,000 species of ...

Minute pirate bugs are generalist predators of spider mites, aphids, thrips, psyllids, white flies, insect eggs, and small caterpillars.

Syrphid are beneficial predators of small soft-bodied pests like aphids, thrips, and scale insects. Adults may feed on pollen and nectar, pollinating plants in the process.

True bugs have piercing-sucking mouthparts and belong to the order Hemiptera and suborder Heteroptera. There are more than 38,000 species of true bugs, and are most closely related to aphids, cicadas, and leaf hoppers. Although some true bugs are con

Predatory mites feed on all life stages of many small arthropods and target pest spider mites. Most predatory mite species do best in humid conditions and controlled environments such as greenhouses and high tunnels.

Blue orchard bees are solitary (do not live in a hive) and nest in pre-existing cavities. Blue orchard bees prefer fruit trees from the family Rosaceae, including apple, cherry, and peach. 

The blue orchard bee (Osmia lignaria) is native to North America and is a highly efficient pollinator of orchards (Bosch and Kemp 2001; Peterson and Artz 2014). These bees reliably visit rosaceous orchard and caneberry flowers, especially in western U. S....

Bees provide an important ecosystem service by contributing to the pollination of crop and wild plant species. The nonnative honey bee (Apis mellifera) is often recognized as the most important of the bee pollinators; however, the roughly 4,000 native Nor...

Utah is home to about 1,000 named species of native bees, with several hundred species living in any one valley and adjacent montane habitats. Urbanization takes its toll on native bees, but many species can persist with a little help from gardeners and

About 1,100 species of native bees reside in Utah. Some wild bees are superb pollinators of Utah's tree fruits, raspberries, squashes, melons and cucumbers. Few of our native bees have much venom or any inclination to sting.

Bee hotels (also called “bee boxes” and “bee blocks”) are popular additions to Utah backyards and commercial agriculture alike, adding nesting habitat to aid local pollination efforts and address native pollinator declines. Common hotel residents inc

There are at least two families of stink bug parasitoids in Utah, Eupelmidae and Scelionidae. These are small, typically black wasps that may be mistaken for small gnats or ants. They will fly in search of stink bug egg masses. Once they find the eggs, th...

Choose insecticides that are non hazardous to bees whenever possible. The more hazardous insecticide active ingredients include many of the organophosphates and the carbamates, and some of the synthetic pyrethroids and neonicotinoids.

In June 2019, the samurai wasp [Trissolcus japonicus (Ashmead)] was discovered in Salt Lake City. This exotic parasitoid wasp is the most promising agent for biological control of BMSB and is uniquely evolved to lay its eggs inside of BMSB eggs. Help us p...