Kitchen Garden Forum

My garden has recently been infested with thousands of pollen beetles - small flying beetles that make for blooms to eat the pollen. Apparently they fly from oil seed rape fields.

Can I ask, will they strip the blossom off my beans and peas, or are they just a nuisance and an eysore - does anyone know? And if they do stripblossoms, what can I do to get rid of them?

"Bug- rid" of Suffolk

Hi Bev,
Do these beetles have a snout, in other words an extended nose, because if so they do they are weevils.
JB.

Hi JB

No, they don't have a " snout". There is a photo on the Gardeners World website - they say they are harmless, but I am not convinced, the blossom on my sweet peas seems to be disappearing PDQ since they arrived....

Any advice gratefully received.

"Bug-rid" of Suffolk

Hi Bev,
It was not my intention to alarm you but Oilseed Rape is renown for harbouring weevils and infecting areas local to it.
JB.

bevparker wrote:My garden has recently been infested with thousands of pollen beetles - small flying beetles that make for blooms to eat the pollen. Apparently they fly from oil seed rape fields.

Can I ask, will they strip the blossom off my beans and peas, or are they just a nuisance and an eysore - does anyone know? And if they do stripblossoms, what can I do to get rid of them?

"Bug- rid" of Suffolk

Bev,

Pollen beetles are completely harmless, they simply eat pollen. More importantly they are also major pollinators of summer flowering plants since they move large quantities of pollen around as they go.

In other words not only are they not a pest, but they should actually ensure that your flowers are properly pollinated and produce a good set of beans and peas.

They fill the keel of sweet peas and are a real nuisance when you want to bring flowers into the house. Apparently if you pop the flowers in a dark shed with a window they fly out of the flowers towards the light. Trouble is sweet peas don't have a long enough shelf life to go messing around like that