Good article- learned something.

Thanks, subby.

I wouldn't have called yellowjackets bad. They are predators of caterpillars. We could use a few more bugs eating invasive moths.

I have an easier system:

Does it bite, sting, or suck blood from humans? It's a bad bug.
Does it leave humans alone? It's a good bug.

Good bug:




Bad bug:

Walker: I have an easier system:

Does it bite, sting, or suck blood from humans? It's a bad bug.
Does it leave humans alone? It's a good bug.

Termites aren't known to bite people and they can go in the bad bug category. I guess there's an exception to every rule.

I have Fire Ants and Mosquitos in my back yard, which is why good or bad, everything must die.

ManateeGag: Walker: I have an easier system:

Does it bite, sting, or suck blood from humans? It's a bad bug.
Does it leave humans alone? It's a good bug.

Termites aren't known to bite people and they can go in the bad bug category. I guess there's an exception to every rule.

True dat.
How about "Can they harm humans or eat their house or crops?" Bad bug.

The only good bug, is a dead bug.

Eddy Gurge

They feel the same about you. Those shiny green flies are just waiting for you to die so they can be the first to lay eggs in you.

ZAZ: They feel the same about you. Those shiny green flies are just waiting for you to die so they can be the first to lay eggs in you.

Diogenes:

Bad bug:
[www.whatsthatbug.com image 495x378]

Good God how did you get that thing off the back of your Caravan?

This is a ladybug larva. Definitely good.



This is a lacewing larva. Definitely good.



This is a Nile Crocodile. If you have one of these in your garden, it is cause for concern.

Bees are welcome. Wasps are destroyed.

Maybe it's based on location, but they missed a heck of a lot of commonly seen good and bad bugs.

Best advice I have, is if you see a lot of them, they are probably bad, using an insect guide or internet search can help you be sure. Generally your predator to prey ration ensures that "good bugs" will be seen in small numbers, when they are all over your plants, they are usually bad bugs. Also you can generally see the leaf damage near where the bad bug infestation is found.

Of course it's all relative, wheel bugs are great predators except I've had to drive them out of my garden because they camp out on my sunflowers gorging themselves on the bumbleebees that feed on them.

Also as a previous poster mentioned, yellowjackets are actually pretty good for the garden, but if it's a nest you may have to deal with it for safety. They generally don't start off aggressive, but as autumn approaches they suddenly get nasty.

What idiot thinks a yellowjacket is a bee?

Our mild Winter has brought out tons of these guys.
Harmless, but freakish.

\Beer inserted for scale.

Buck: Well, well, well, they certainly are scraping the bottom of the barrel for cheerleaders these days.
Tia: What are you doing here?
Buck: We were just driving by to get some ice cream. Thought you might like to join us.
Tia: I said I would be home at 10. It's not even 9!
Buck: Who said anything about that? I thought you might like to join us for some ice cream. Maybe your Bug here can join us. We can talk about burying the hatchet. You know what a hatchet is, don't you, Bug?
Bug: It's an ax?
Buck: Sort of, yeah, yeah. I got one in my car if you'd like to see it.
Bug: I'll pass.
Buck: Fair enough. I like to carry it, you never know when your going to need it. A situation may come up say for example, someone has been drinking, and about to drive a loved one home, then I'd like to know I have it. Not to kill, no. Just to maim. Take a little off the shoulder. Swish! The elbow. Slash! Shave a little meat off the old kneecap. Fowap! Ooooo! You got both kneecaps? I like to keep mine razor sharp. Sharp enough you can shave with it. Why I've been known to circumcise a gnat. You're not a gnat are you, Bug? Wait a minute, bug, gnat. Is there a little similarity? Whoa, I think there is! Ha ha ha. You understand what I'm talking about? I don't think you do. I'll be right back. Heh heh heh heh.
[walks away]
Tia: I'm sorry.
Bug: Look, I think you'd better split. I don't exactly want him to go berserk with an ax on me.
Tia: He's all talk.
[Buck pulls out a small hatchet from his car]
Buck: Here it is! Come over, come on, I want to show it to you. Maybe later. Okay

Does it buzz around in my face or bite me or come in my house or live in a colony of billions? It dies.

Otherwise I leave them alone.

Is it goatees? It's the ones with goatees, isn't it? Pretty sure it's goatees.

This is why I don't mind the fact that my yard has thousands of lizards. And a few frogs.

Less bugs.

My friend has a huge infestation of box elder bugs. What the best way to get rid of them?

Bugs outside the house-Good.
Bugs inside the house-Dead.

Spray 'em all...let God sort them out!

They're all good

jedimk: What idiot thinks a yellowjacket is a bee?

The same sort of person who thinks that beetles or earwigs are bugs.

I can usually tell which bugs are good and which bugs are not good by their crunchiness and how they taste in milk.

that's right. . .get the mental crunching sound of bugs exoskeletons being crushed between your teeth. . .crunch crunch crunch as you chew

fark yellowjackets. fark them right in their stupid farking black and yellow stripped buttholes.

I farking hate those stupid farking things.

/being allergic to them might have something to do with the hate, but I'm pretty sure I'd hate them anyway.

minoridiot: I have Fire Ants and Mosquitos in my back yard, which is why good or bad, everything must die.

So you're OK with collateral damage?

ClintBartonWannabe: Bugs outside the house-Good.
Bugs inside the house-Dead.

What this guy said.

Although we had a spider at my college apartment who lived in the corner of the kitchen. It never moved out of the corner and did a decent job catching ants and whatnot. We called him Roy until the day someone vacuumed him up.

Maud Dib:

This is a Nile Crocodile. If you have one of these in your garden, it is cause for concern.


Only because everybody around you is rioting and the government is in a shambles. Nile Crocodiles are, themselves, surprisingly laid back as long as you don't come within several hundred feet of them. I actually used to know a Nile Crocodile. I didn't realise until he took his shirt off at the pool, but when I did, I withdrew from him socially. I'll always be ashamed of that, and this dark secret from my past is why my existence these days is a constant struggle to educate The Kids about acceptance. Several of The Kids have gone missing, probably because they couldn't handle the explosive force of my truth bombs. They did find an arm, though.

Not all that "bad", just annoying respawning chaff.

Like rove beetles, earwigs seek out moist, dark areas such as mulch, organic debris, cracks and crevices and spaces under flower pots.

May as well try leaving the mailbox open. They're always the fark in there.

/because cutting down the tree next to it is just more frustration with the city. Though it would stop the roots from choking the sprinkler pipes.

Wasn't Looking at his Neck: Like rove beetles, earwigs seek out moist, dark areas such as mulch, organic debris, cracks and crevices and spaces under flower pots.

May as well try leaving the mailbox open. They're always the fark in there.

/because cutting down the tree next to it is just more frustration with the city. Though it would stop the roots from choking the sprinkler pipes.



The good news is, it's NOT centipedes....

What I cannot understand is wasps. If it were not for houses, sheds, door and window frames, light posts etc they'd go extinct. I've never seen their nests anywhere but human structures. I'll be on hikes with trees unbroken for 20 miles in every direction, and there's a wasp nest on the hiking info sign. We take vacations to a cabin in the Ozarks often, with miles of forest in every direction. Where do they build a nest? On the door frame. After leaving a national forest in Colorado last week, I see a light post in the parking light - and a hornets nest under the metal light dome.

They're only called earwigs because calling them vaginawigs made insectologers giggle. Seriously though, next time you're with headbutting distance of a vagina, take a look in that thing. Calling them "earwigs" is like a Sex Pistol calling himself a musician. Those flailing yobs. Though now that if I gave it some thought, maybe if I hung out with fewer Sex Pistol fans, I would see fewer vaginawigs. Food for thought.

Oznog: Wasn't Looking at his Neck: Like rove beetles, earwigs seek out moist, dark areas such as mulch, organic debris, cracks and crevices and spaces under flower pots.

May as well try leaving the mailbox open. They're always the fark in there.

/because cutting down the tree next to it is just more frustration with the city. Though it would stop the roots from choking the sprinkler pipes.

[i422.photobucket.com image 600x250]

The good news is, it's NOT centipedes....

The bad news, the thousand leggers prefer my basement...

Wasn't Looking at his Neck: Oznog: Wasn't Looking at his Neck: Like rove beetles, earwigs seek out moist, dark areas such as mulch, organic debris, cracks and crevices and spaces under flower pots.

May as well try leaving the mailbox open. They're always the fark in there.

/because cutting down the tree next to it is just more frustration with the city. Though it would stop the roots from choking the sprinkler pipes.

[i422.photobucket.com image 600x250]

The good news is, it's NOT centipedes....

The bad news, the thousand leggers prefer my basement...

You mean your butt, right? It's the butt, isn't it? You have centipedes in your butt, don't you? Butt centipedes. To a certain segment of the population, that would be awesome. I'm even tempted to try one of your butt centipedes. I will forward $10 if you can supply me with some eggs and a drumstick.

No mention of the Assassin Bug? My yard is full of this scary looking dudes. Apparently they're helpful, but they're creepy.

Austria, being at the bottom of the world, has a 90% bad terrifying bug-10% good bug distribution.

I now have a full case of the heebie-jeebies. Thanks, internet.

That wasn't really an article about distinguishing features between good bugs and bad bugs. That was more of a "this bug is good, this one isn't." The headline of the article is a bit deceiving. I was expecting something more along the lines of "the shape of a snake's head will generally tell you if it's poisonous." However, it was relatively Informative.

20/20: My friend has a huge infestation of box elder bugs. What the best way to get rid of them?

Wait.

Lady beetles, often called lady bugs, are not considered true bugs or insects.

[facepalm.jpg]

Maud Dib:

This is a lacewing larva. Definitely good.

I was at Disney World last summer for a wedding and the day before we had breakfast at their Ohana restaurant at the Polynesian resort. The lobby of the building has an indoor tropical garden and while sitting around there waiting for everyone to arrive I noticed a couple of employees walking through the garden sprinkling stuff out of small plastic bottles. Intrigued I approached one of them and asked what they were doing, because they were sprinkling whatever it was on the leaves of the plants and not on the ground. Turns out that the jars contained bits of tiny wood chips, some nutrient supplements, and lacewing larvae! (There was another species of larva in there but they were too small to see, and I forget their name.) Turns out Disney is very big on using natural gardening techniques wherever they can.

Detinwolf: We called him Roy until the day someone vacuumed him up.

Killroy was here.

The Broadway Show Tune Bug -- Good Bug or Bad Bug? The Controversy Continues ....

Some people claim it is colorful and amusing.

Other people claim it is destroying America.

News at 11:00

No kidding there are a lot of good bugs in you garden.

I love my paper wasps, but yellow jackets must die. They are mean, mean drunks in the fall.

I don't want any living creature near my house that's smaller than the asian guy that delivers the mail. There is no good - they are all pests. Stray pets, rodents, arachnids, insects, and small children all get sprayed with insecticide when they get too close.

Oddly enough, it seems to work on all of them.