Why Use Beneficial Bugs?
As a youngster, I remember hearing my mother exclaim, the only good bug is a dead bug! each time she brought in aphid covered flowers or vegetables from our garden. In those days, our “control” was to use chemicals to kill anything that moved, the goal being to make our yards and gardens “bug free.” A lot has changed in the ensuing years. I remember my father using DDT to kill ants! Today, not many people even remember the name. Many chemicals have been found to be toxic to humans and too dangerous to use for control of garden pests. They have been removed from the market. When we used those dangerous pesticides, we would kill maybe 98% of the bad bugs. But the 2% that persisted and survived did so because they were different than the rest and more able to resist the chemical applications. Those 2% reproduced, making a whole generation of pesticide-resistent bugs. The result was that we had to use even stronger and stronger pesticides with greater residuals (lasting power), and we were
