Aphid Buster, Organic Garden Pest Control

Description

Thank you for visiting Andrew’s Reclaimed, home of the original reclaimed wood mason bee boxes.

I'm pleased to present to you my nest block for the passaloecus aphid wasps. With proper installation, it's sure to bring organic aphid control to your garden, and help you control numbers of aphids without costly pesticides, naturally.

A few aphid-eating species of the gentle beneficial insect genus Passaloecus can be very helpful in the garden, as they reduce damage to your vegetable crops. They nest in holes such as those drilled by wood-boring beetles, and feed their young with aphids, which are some of our most voracious garden pests.

The female Passaloecus first clear debris from the tunnel with their mandibles, then visit trees for resin droplets, and spread a ring of sticky resin around the nest entrance, to prevent other predatory insects from entry.

She'll then lay her eggs, while providing 25 or so paralyzed aphids for each egg, in 7 to 15 cells per cavity, ranging from 3/16" to 1/2" in length, pasting walls of resin between each egg cell. When the hole is full of eggs and aphids, she will seal off the entrance with an extra-thick layer of resin.

The gentle and tiny Passaloecus wasp, about the length of a pencil eraser, is usually dull black with transparent wings, and occurs in almost all of the lower 48 states and Alaska. Populations are somewhat sparse in the southeast. They can be found hovering around shrubs, flowers and fruit-bearing plants, hunting for aphids.

The best place to hang this block is on a post or a wall in a sunny east-facing spot near garden plants prone to aphid attack.

Mount this block May or June, or when highs reach around 75 degrees. In many areas, the aphid eating wasps will be active through September. The developing young should be over-wintered in the block in a location that will be dry and cool, but not freezing, and hung up again when the weather nears 75 degrees the following year, that they may emerge, and start the cycle over again.

My Aphid Buster Nest Blocks are made from extra hard and dense reclaimed fir, drilled at high speed with over 10 linear feet of paper-smooth nesting tunnels, capable of holding about 500 larvae to feed on as many as 12,000 aphids.

I've installed a wire on the back, so the nest may be hung near your plants, from a stainless steel screw, which is also provided.

Thanks for considering healthy, natural pest control for your garden, and for buying eco-friendly.

Cheers,

Andrew's Reclaimed

Added on May 12, 2009

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