View Full Version : praying mantis question
arky188
03-27-2006, 04:49 PM
My question is this, in my gardening catalog i find such things as praying mantis eggs that you cant put out in your garden and they will hatch and eats the pests, but will they also sit and gorge themselves on bees coming to my blooms? Has anybody tried this before?
Ribster
03-27-2006, 05:03 PM
They can eat bees, but usually catch other types of insects that they are better adapted to hunt. This comes from my personal observations. My insect books don't mention their specific prey. I wouldn't worry about it too much. They couldn't eat too many to cause much of a problem.
kenpkr
03-27-2006, 07:31 PM
I recently ordered 5 mantid egg cases off E-Bay for 5.00 plus 4.00 shipping. Each egg case has b/t 50-200 praying mantids. Can't wait to get them in my yard. I really don't think that they will eat that many bees since most of them forage outside my yard anyway. I do plant sunflowers in the garden that the bees love so it'll be interesting to see if the mantids camp out on the sunflowers waiting for the bees. But the chance to observe mantids all over my yard, to me, far outweighs the chance that I may lose a few bees to predation.
Check out this link-
http://search.ebay.com/mantis-egg-case_W0QQbsZSearchQQcatrefZC6QQfromZR10QQfsooZ1QQf sopZ1QQftrtZ1QQftrvZ1QQpqryZmantidQ20eggQ20caseQQs acatZQ2d1QQsaprchiZQQsaprcloZQQsofocusZbs
Sorry about the long link. Or just search for praying mantis egg cases on E-bay.
Here's another link about mantids-
http://www.maskedflowerimages.com/mantis.htm
Kishwaukee Goldminer
03-27-2006, 07:40 PM
Hi, Arky! We found praying mantises (manti?) in our bushes and were thrilled because of all the other bugs we have to fight. But I remember seeing one of them resting on the side of a beehive -- pointed toward the entrance!
I concluded the worst, caught the mantis, and released it in the raspberries. (They can really pinch!) If I were you, I'd figure on losing bees; the unknown in the equation is how many other bugs are present for them to eat. If many are, you'll lose fewer bees.
Best wishes!
Tom Chaudoir
03-27-2006, 07:41 PM
Really cool! I didn't know you could buy the egg cases. Thanks!
Kenpkr,
When you hit the url button a window opens for you to paste the url. Then another opens with the default words "web page".
I'm going to change those words to "Praying mantis eggs." It's the same site as yours above.
Praying mantis eggs. (http://search.ebay.com/mantis-egg-case_W0QQbsZSearchQQcatrefZC6QQfromZR10QQfsooZ1QQf sopZ1QQftrtZ1QQftrvZ1QQpqryZmantidQ20eggQ20caseQQs acatZQ2d1QQsaprchiZQQsaprcloZQQsofocusZbs)
You can use "click here" or whatever else you like. It makes the link nice and compact.
[ March 27, 2006, 08:44 PM: Message edited by: Tom Chaudoir ]
artic
03-28-2006, 11:24 AM
I don't know what sort of damage they caused, but last year I had to remove 5 or 6 mantis from the landing of my hive. When they were not on the hive itself they seemed to like to hang out on various catnip plants that were frequented by various types of bees which I'm sure they caught.
They mostly eat aphids and such.