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The Corroboree
shonman

Catch and maintain beneficial insects

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Does anyone have suggestions for catching predatory insects, like mites, from nature...

Then maintaining and breeding them? ( to each other of course!)

I heard from one source,

That predatory mites are attracted to mealworms for some reason...

And that if I put a box of mealworms out,

Predatory mites would appear and found be taken away with the mealworms....

Maybe because other mites are present?

Not sure, but I might try this when it warms up a bit.....

Edited by shonman
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Interesting idea.

But to what end?

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Biodiversity. Get your primary producers (plants) in order and then the rest will follow.

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I support halcy, if you have a nice garden, than the same, will attract benefical insects as well, as the bad ones.

sometimes one can observe, some premantis or stick insects hatching in the garden, by the dozens, and one can than, distribute them to all the plants which suffer from pest animals.

often indoor plants suffer the most from sucking pest animals, and placing one or two lady bugs, to those plants will make, very soon a big difference.

I would even count lizards as benefical, because they eat gnats....

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I see everything as beneficial, even the pests. When in balance, they are all good.

The more different species of lizards, frogs, insects, bugs, critters, crawlies and microbes the better.

Rabbits, cats and cane toads though :uzi:

They were sent to destroy.

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@planthelper, halcyon daze.....

Biodiversity is great when your plants are outdoors.

I almost never have any problems with mites or scale then.

In fact, all of the above, pretty much dissapear outside.

It's when I have to bring them inside, that there is a problem.

Just this morning, I noticed the ants are back.

No doubt because they like the scale, and farm it.

I knew they were back, because i smelled them.

Humans do have a decent sense of smell, and some animal instincts that they often do not use.

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http://www.bugsforbugs.com.au/

You can buy predatory insects from this website. You could maybe ask them how they breed them, they might not tell you though. I bought some native ladybugs from them a few years ago and now my yard swarms with them.

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