GARDEN UNDER APHID ATTACK....NATURAL APHID CONTROL IN MY GARDEN
Channel: wallgecko
Date: 2020-07-18

I live in a tropical/monsoon climate in Kerala, India. I had planted a few sets of long bean plants in February. Within a month they were heavily infested by black coloured aphids. Aphids are tiny insects that suck the sap from plants. Some types of ants tend them for their secretions that the ants use as food. I could identify at least four different types of ants in symbiotic relationship with them on my plants. I have almost given up on the plants, when a few Orange-Red ants that lived in a leaves nest on a near by mango tree started colonizing my plants and the aphids and other ants slowly started to disappear. I think the ants that helped me out are weaver ants/Orange gaster  (Oecophylla smaragdina )