Aphid Infestation!

The other day I noticed some little green bugs on the apple tree.  I hit the web to try and get the skinny on what they might be, and the news is not good.  I'm almost 100% sure that the infestation of green mites are Aphids!  Wikipedia has a ton of info on aphids and the consensus is that they are BAD.  Crops with aphids are unhappy crops.


As I read more about these little pests, I learned that their biggest natural threat comes from lady bugs!  Ha ha.  In this picture there is a lady bug chilling out, waiting for a snack!  Unfortunately, I only saw one lady bug, but there are clusters of aphids under most of the leaves.  My little lady bug helper needed some serious friends to come to the feast.


Andrea and I rode our bikes to lunch and on the way home we sung by Armstrongs.  Right there on the shelf were dozens of containers of lady bugs.  The label said there are 500+ bugs in each.  We headed home and waited for the kids to get back from school.

Once the kids were back and it started to cool off a little, we let them loose!  The lady bugs grabbed onto the leaves and branches and hunkered down for the night.  We even saw a couple aphids meet their demise!