Friend or Foe?

... Or with Fava beans and a Chianti.

I was gifted a small box of ladybirds for my birthday. An unusual yet intriguing present, and well thought out for the gardener in me who likes to avoid chemicals.

Broad beans are well known to attract black fly and before I'd turned my back, they'd managed to infest these plants. They had to be the target for the ladybirds, so I set them free and invited them to get to work or they'd have to go.

The black fly seem to have faired nicely on the tips of the beans - broad or fava as you might prefer, the ladybirds are still much in evidence, but seem to have taken rather more to sunbathing than devouring the voracious black aphids.

Never mind, though. Quite uninvited, but nonetheless welcome, a visiting gang of wasps (what is their collective noun) are setting about making short shrift of them. The plants were alive with that distinctive wasp hum.

There's clearly more to the wasp than the annoying insect whose proned to invading a good summer picnic. This one can be clearly seen eating a black fly. As to whether, they're friends or foes, I'll let you decide.