Let the honey bees play but keeps the pests away
April 16, 2015 4:42 AM   Subscribe

I have some beautiful heirloom roses that I planted last year. One of them was decimated by rose slugs. It has come back bushy and beautiful thankfully! I noticed that someone had already been sampling this year's goods. Aphids maybe? What can I put on the roses that will keep the pests away but not harm the honey bees? Someone must have a hive nearby because I see them quite frequently.
posted by MayNicholas to Home & Garden (10 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
Your best bet is to figure out exactly what it is that's eating the leaves. There are "home remedies" for a lot of things, efforts that wouldn't affect honeybees at all, but they're all different. Aphids have a very different treatment (dish soap) from slugs (beer) and from caterpillars, and beetles, etc. So your first step is a solid diagnosis. Go look at the plant thoroughly, check under the leaves, try and see what kind of creatures are hanging out on the stems.
posted by aimedwander at 4:57 AM on April 16, 2015


Response by poster: From Googling various images of damage, I'd say it's the sawfly/ aka rose slug back again. The damage just isn't as heavy yet. Looks like there are little windows chewed in to the leaves. Not full holes, just a skimming of the underside.
posted by MayNicholas at 5:13 AM on April 16, 2015


What can I put on the roses that will keep the pests away but not harm the honey bees?

Praying mantises will do much more damage to crawly chewy things than to bees, because the former are so much easier to catch.
posted by flabdablet at 5:29 AM on April 16, 2015 [2 favorites]


Are you in the US? Talk to your local county extension agent; it's part of the Dept of Agriculture and it's free. Here's a site with some links. They have a ton of resources.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 5:35 AM on April 16, 2015 [4 favorites]


Building on a previous answer, you can purchase praying mantis egg cases which hatch 100-400 babies from Amazon. Release them into your garden and that should help quite a bit.
posted by fancyoats at 7:56 AM on April 16, 2015


Just knocking the larvae off the leaves on a regular basis (every 2-3 days until the infestation subsides) will handle it. It's time-consuming but 100% natural. There are devices to knock bugs/larvae off with water jets. A dilute addition of dish soap (1Tb per gal) ups the ante. Soap reside will rinse off in a heavy rainstorm; if you're super-concerned about bees just stop using additives and rinse the bushes down once the flowers start to bloom, but at this time of year there's no nectar so the bees won't end up harvesting your dish soap.
posted by aimedwander at 8:46 AM on April 16, 2015 [2 favorites]


Response by poster: I did the whole picking them off daily for about a month or two last year and I felt as though I could never get ahead of them.
Are there any draw backs to the mantis babies?
How about the soap? Do you buy a hose sprayer attachment or would a water bottle spritzer work fine?
posted by MayNicholas at 9:58 AM on April 16, 2015


Are there any draw backs to the mantis babies?

Once they've run out of crawling sapsuckers to chow down on you might lose the odd bee, unless they just decide to eat each other instead.

Even so, they're generally reckoned to be a net force for good in the garden. They certainly do less damage than sprays.
posted by flabdablet at 11:31 AM on April 16, 2015


How about a mass release of lady bugs? They love aphids. If you are going to apply anything (chemical) to your plants, do it at night when the bees are not active. This will ensure that whatever you are using will dissipate before the bees wake up and start their day. Make sure you read the instructions on how to effectively treat whatever is munching on your plants. Even insecticidal soaps, which are low toxicity, can damage bees because it was used incorrectly.
posted by ATX Peanut at 11:52 AM on April 16, 2015


I don't know any anti-rose-slug remedies, but planting garlic near the roots of your roses will deter aphids. Plus, you get fresh garlic.
posted by Pallas Athena at 6:04 PM on April 16, 2015


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