How to encourage sawflies, wasps, ants and bees as natural enemies of field crop pests

The order Hymenoptera includes a wide diversity of insects, including sawflies, wasps, ants and bees, many of which play an important role as natural enemies of field pests.

This order of insects is the largest, comprising 57 families. It encompasses insects with very different life forms and biology. The order is divided into three suborders:

1. Apocrita-Aculeata

• Stinging insects
• Slender-waisted
• Includes social insects, such as bees, wasps and ants
• Also includes some solitary predatory wasp species

2. Apocrita-Parasitica

• Parasitic wasps
• Slender-waisted
• In many situations, the most important group of natural enemies

3. Symphyta

• Sawflies and woodwasps, some of which are pests
• Plant-feeding
• No obvious waist

Adult hymenoptera require proteins for egg development and most feed on honeydew, nectar or other plant secretions.

Adults of some species are carnivorous (for example, ants, vespid wasps and some sawflies).

The feeding habitats of social insects are complex and may involve the collection and storage of plant and animal food or culturing of fungi and other insects.

There are parasitic species within this suborder, but these lay eggs near the host and their larvae attack hosts from the outside.

Identification

• Adult females take other insects, including other natural enemies, to feed their young in nests
• Their contribution to biocontrol is unknown

Identification

• Ectoparasites of beetle (including stored product pests), moth and butterfly larvae

Identification

• Some species are predatory, while others ‘farm’ aphids
• Confined to uncultivated land

Identification

• Some species are predatory, while others ‘farm’ aphids
• Confined to uncultivated land