Beneficial Garden Insects: Part III Lacewings
Lacewings LOVE aphids, leafminer, mealybugs, thrips, whitefly, armyworms, 
bollworms, cabbage worm, codling moths, corn borer, cutworm, DBM, fruitworm, leafhopper nymphs and eggs, potato beetle, scale insects, spider mites, and caterpillars of most pest moths. If given the chance, they can also prey on adult pests.
You can find their eggs on slender stalks or on the underside of leaves. Pale green in color,each egg is attached to the top of a hair-like filament.
Some often refer to the larvae as aphid lions because of their ravenous hunger for aphids. They are grayish-brown when newly hatched. Lacewings are born looking for food. They grow to about 1 cm in length. The larvae resemble alligators with pincers like jaw.They attack their prey by taking them with their large sucking jaws and injecting paralyzing poison, and then sucking out the body fluids of the pest. A larva can eat 200 or more pests or pest eggs a week. An older larva can consume 30-50 aphids per day. It can consume more than 400 aphids during its development. They cover their bodies with prey debris.
Adults are green to yellowish-green with four, delicate transparent wings that have many veins and cross veins. Adults are about 18 mm long, with long hair-like antennae and red-gold eyes. Each adult female may deposit more than 100 eggs. Many species of adult lacewings do not prey on pests. They feed on nectar, pollen, and honeydew. An adult will live for about four to six weeks depending on the climatic conditions.
To help attract lacewing to your garden, make available flowering plants such as dill, cosmos, sunflower, carrots, dandelions- a good source of pollen and nectar for adults. Provide source of water during dry season.
‘Til next time,
Poppy
I believe that the lacewings are the best beneficial insect for most people’s gardens and landscapes. They eat almost any kind of insect and you can buy them as eggs so they begin searching wherever you place them. Nobody likes spraying pesticides on the food they are growing, so I’ve built a web site with info on them and other beneficials at http://www.BetterBugs.com to help people learn how to use these good bugs. Another big benefit of using a predator instead of an insecticide is that it allows all the beneficial insects that are already present in your garden to keep working on the pest insect complex.
Thanks for your comment Jim. At the first of Spring, I had a good population of Ladybugs present in my vegetable garden- more than last year. Usually aphids have moved in and begun their dirty work by now. Not so this year. I saw the first sign of aphids just yesterday on my field peas. I’m going to see how well the Ladybugs do with them. I may have to help with some soapy water and orange oil if they become too rampant. Last year the aphids attacked and just about rendered a row useless!……Thanks again Poppy (BTW, I like your site!)