Plants suddenly curl their leaves or get brown leaves? The cause is quickly found when yellow beetles romp about in the garden. Of course, the gardener wants to get rid of the pests as soon as possible. But is that also possible without chemicals? In this guide he will find helpful tips and tricks to drive away uninvited guests naturally.
Table of Contents
identify beneficials
Cantharis decipiens
Cantharis decipiens has a tawny body and a black head. The center spot on the pronotum is particularly striking. Its wings are slightly hairy. The beetle occurs from April to August. Its usual habitat is meadows and forest edges. Cantharis decipiens feeds on insects and worms.
Danacea nigritarsis
Danacea nigritarsis can be recognized by its golden to dull grey-green colour. It has light scales and is slightly hairy. It appears most frequently in early summer from May to June. Its diet includes rotten wood and pollen.
Smooth-brushed beetle (Trichius zonatus)
The pale yellow body of the smooth-shinned paintbrush beetle has exactly six irregularly shaped black spots. It appears from May to August and likes to perch on flowers to feed on their pollen. Its larvae, however, eat dead wood.
Ladder Buck (Saperda scalaris)
The ladder longhorn is considered the most beautiful yellow beetle among the longhorn beetles. From April to June, it infests gardens where it finds dead trees.
- Females dig furrows in dead wood to lay their eggs in them
- likes to perch on fruit or hazelnut trees
- is considered harmless because it only eats dead growth
Schwarzkopf-Halmläufer (Demetrias atricapillus)The Black-headed Stalked Creeper can be identified by its yellow to brown body with gold-colored wings and a black, amber-tipped head. It stays in the garden all year round, but mainly prefers barns. Six different species are common in Central Europe. Usually the yellow beetle hides in rotten leaves. It can become annoying because it flies towards artificial light sources.
Sixteen-spotted Mushroom Ladybird (Halyzia sedecimguttata)
The sixteen-spotted mushroom ladybird has a very distinctive appearance with its orange to light brown body and 16 white spots. Like most of its relatives, the yellow beetle, which appears all year round, is one of the beneficial insects.
Sixteen-spot Ladybird (Tytthaspis sedecimpunctata)
The body of the sixteen-spot ladybug is cream in color rather than yellow and is heavily convex. It has eight black spots on each wing, sometimes merging into each other. Tytthaspis sedecimpunctata lives mainly in German low mountain ranges. From March to October it rids gardens of aphids.
Zweiundzwanzigpunkt-Marienkäfer
The twenty-two spot ladybug has a round body and, true to its name, eleven spots on each pair of wings. From April to October, it tackles the powdery mildew fungus, which it likes to eat.
detect pests
Spotted willow beetle (Chrysomela vigintipunctata)
With its pale yellow, yellow or red-orange body and ten elongated black spots on each pair of wings, the spotted willow leaf beetle inhabits German gardens from April to July or August. It often occurs in large populations. Chrysomela vigintipunctata is particularly feared because it lives on pastures and sometimes eats them completely bare. A flock of the beetle is able to wipe out an entire pasture population. Just a few years ago, garden owners were allowed to use pesticides against the spotted willow leaf beetle in their private homes as well. However, the nature conservation association has now banned the then legitimate active ingredients acetamiprid and thiacloprid. Gamekeepers are only allowed to use pesticides against the beetle in commercial forests.
Goldstaub-Laubkäfer (Hoplia argentea)
The green-yellow or brown-yellow scales of the gold-dust thorn beetle give its body an impressive shimmer. Its habitat is limited to the Alpine regions. Here he appears from May to June. However, its occurrence is not welcomed. While Hoplia argentea feeds on pollen as an imago, the larvae live underground and eat plant roots. Nevertheless, this type of beetle is considered useful because they primarily use dead material.
Kartoffelkäfer (Leptinotarsa decemlineata)
Most people are familiar with the Colorado potato beetle because its appearance is very feared. Yellow and black vertical stripes alternate on its oval, strongly curved body. The legs, on the other hand, are colored orange. The yellow beetle, which appears from May to October, is considered a pest on potato fields. Its population not infrequently destroys entire harvests since it moved to Germany from America. Due to the high level of damage, farmers have developed numerous biological control strategies:
- Collect the Colorado potato beetle with your hands in the early hours of the morning
- Vegetable broth made from mint stock
- Mixed cultures with aromatic plants (mint, caraway, spinach, horseradish or peas)
- plant early varieties
Sandrasen-Fallkäfer (Cryptocephalus fulvus)
While the turf beetle’s smooth, shiny body is mostly colored orange or brown, the wings are yellow. It lives on various trees, appears from June to September and eats flowers, leaves and buds.
General Measures
Even if yellow beetles are a nuisance in the garden, chemistry is not the solution. With beneficial insects, the gardener succeeds in driving away the uninvited guests in a completely biological and environmentally friendly way.
- lacewings
- Hedgehog
- ladybug
- catchy tunes
- parasitic wasps
- be crazy
- birds
Attract beneficial insects to the garden
In order for the above animals to feel comfortable, the gardener should provide them with food and shelter. Nest boxes, mounds of leaves, and berry and bud-bearing shrubs are ideal. The more natural the garden, the better. He should only dig up the earth after the first frost, when most of the beetles have already withdrawn. The hard soil prevents the pests from laying their eggs.
home remedies
Rock flour or algae lime help against beetle species that feed on pollen. The gardener sprays the home remedies on the flowers. It does not harm the plant itself.
