Insects 2022. Where are they?

I wonder what happens to an insect population when you give them a perfect habitat, give them chance to settle there and breed, then snatch it away.

In my neighborhood, we have a lot of green space. When the covid lockdown came, all our local greens went wild. It was beautiful. I remember going on my 'daily exercise' and the air would be filled with the sounds of nature. All the insects had moved into the greens, and of course this caught the attention of the smaller birds and in the evening, bats.

Then Boris declared everyone should go back to work. The very next day the council were out on their tractors, and scalped everything.

I've not seen much in the way of insect life round here ever since.

 

Hi @strongylodon , chances are that you are right and I'm wrong- I'm notoriously bad in insect identification But I do remember that we looked them up when they appeared en masse. Possibly North East cost might be on their migration route, we get all kinds of odd species here occasionally.

Well, used to get...

 

Do you grow pelargoniums, Victoria? The little brownish things are probably the pesky 'geranium' moth. They overran SW France a couple of years ago and decimated everyone's displays. A squib of Bacillus thuringiensis sorts them, without harming anything else

 

Yes I do, but they seem to be more fond of the Oleander and Iochroma. I don't use anything but washing up liquid on my plants. My Pelargoniums look ok. I looked it up and there is a suggestion for washing up liquid. Thanks for letting me know to keep an eye open.

Geranium Moth HOW to stop What to use as a spray

 

I remembered this thread and am now checking in to report that I've just seen a Painted Lady and a Cabbage White fluttering about in my London back garden

I have not done badly for insects here, this year. This morning I can also see honey and bumble bees on the salvias, and a whole host of smaller insects. There were lots of moths flying around yesterday evening, too. On the other hand there seem to be fewer damselflies around this year, usually I get more, drawn to the pond.

I attended a really interesting talk and honey tasting earlier this year by these London beekeepers; they are also big on community greening projects. They were actually concerned that urban bee hives are becoming rather too trendy - not because they didn't want competition, but because there are now just about as many hives as there is forage for, in London. Too many and you run the risk of the farmed bees not thriving and/or pushing other native pollinators off the map, as the two groups compete for resources. We were therefore encouraged to help out by doing more planting for pollinators, rather than becoming hobby bee-keepers!

 

I'm sure we could do with more bee keeping in my area.
I'm sure the neighbours would complain though.
We seem to have two kinds of people around here, those that have no feelings for nature and blindly just do whatever they like, or the other extreme with sanitized gardeners and nothing must be allowed to chew a leaf or leaves land on the patio.

I'm somewhere in the middle, literally.

 

Well I surely can't complain...



There are hundreds of bees in our garden at the moment. Butterflies are also pouring in, thanks to two newly planted buddleias.
And I had to eradicate another ant nest. They were tunneling underneath our window and raiding the insides of our home.

 

I have decided all the spiders are here! I went out to tend to my seedlings and plants in my "nursery" out front where I keep a beady on on them ... and was inundated with spider webs on everything, mostly Hibiscus but even the Dracaena and my Meercat ornament! There doesn't appear any leaf damage. I took off all I could but couldn't see the spiders and wet the plants as they were in the shade. What is this all about, the heat? We were 29c at the time with a gusty wind. I shall now keep a twice daily vigilance,

 

Lots of small spiders here as well, i think they are the ones that go on to being the ones we have every autumn when can't walk up the garden every morning without getting covered in webs.

 

Ah ha. I like that and perhaps should encourage them. The webs are unsightly though.

 

I keep thinking there were more bees and hoverflies in previous years. Today I did see a few in my garden, there were honey bees enjoying Verbena bonarienses, Achillea and Agastache, hoverflies on feverfew flowers and Erigeron karvinskianus flowers and bumble bees mostly only searching out a few remaining fast-vanishing nasturtiums. One bumble bee having been to all the nasturtiums settled on some Violas for a while and totally rejected the Petunias.

I have tried hard this year to provide the bees and hoverflies with a variety of flowers I think they might like. This is the height of summer now and there just don't seem to be enough bees or hoverflies.

 

Hi i seen fewer insects than 5 years ago but read this

Eco-friendly light-emitting diode (LED) bulbs used in streetlamps produce more light pollution and are killing off insects, a new study shows. Researchers in England found LED streetlights kill off nocturnal moth caterpillar populations by 50 per cent, compared to areas without the lights.

Despite being marketed as environmentally friendly, LED lights are even more harmful for insect populations than the traditional yellow sodium bulbs they are replacing. They're energy-efficient, cheap to run and brighter with more blue wavelengths, but this means they're also likely making insects more exposed to predators.The insects could also be getting killed from coming into contact with hot lights, which may also deter them from laying eggs

This is expected to have knock-on effects on other species, including predatory insects, hedgehogs, and songbirds, which need to find hundreds of caterpillars a day to feed themselves and their young.' So what might be seem good is not always

 

Modern street lamps are mostly directed to the ground, whereas older models often had an almost 360 degree light radius producing a lot more light pollution.

That said, it is true that modern LED lights give off a LOT more light than older models who mostly produce heat with a miniscule percentage of light as a byproduct. That means you can reduce energy consumption by 80% and still get double the light. The LEDs don't produce a lot of heat though. Sodium-Vapor Lamps (the orange ones) on the other hand need internal temperatures of up to a 1000°C to work properly.

All that said... I think the reduction of nocturnal bugs isn't mainly due to street lamps, although they also play a role. It's, as it so often is, the reduction of living space.
Building walls are neat and crackless. Attics and roof areas are getting sealed. Trimmed lawns and gravel gardens are are a dead wasteland. Dead wood and plants are removed almost instantly and most people prefer long blooming high-end hybrids which may look nice but offer nothing in terms of food for the insects. And every weed that wants to grow in the space in between gets cut or poisoned.