Should I be concerned about these insects?

[Digging in the Dirt 3]

Over the last couple of years, we have been trying to attract butterflies to our garden.  We have planted many types of milkweed to try to bring in monarchs, but last year, we brought in a new visitor to our backyard.  They were only interested in the swamp milkweed (asclepias incarnata), and as soon as the milkweed was done flowering, they were gone.  Every once in a while, I would see one on the tropical milkweed, but they were few and far between.

 

My question is should I be concerned about these insects?  They didn't seem to be to aggressive when I took their picture, but we didn't start babysitting our niece until the end of the summer, so there wasn't that much activity in the backyard when they there.

 

Thanks for any information you can give me on these.

 

[msumary 0]

That insect is a wasp called a cricket catcher. It's not a threat to the plant we don't think it is a problem to caterpillars. It does prey on crickets and their relatives, although it is very nasty looking, and it can sting, it is not particularly aggressive.

[Michele A 2]

Have the milkweed brought you monarchs?  I had the whole side of a Rochester house planted with milkweed , but never saw a Monarch.

[Digging in the Dirt 3]

Hi Michele,

 

The swamp milkweed pulled in a few monarchs to nectar, but I scoured those plants with a fine tooth comb and have never seen a caterpillar yet.  Janet told me not to give up, so they are staying in the garden for now.

 

However, the tropical milkweed (asclepias curassavica) flowered all summer, and surprisingly continued to flower well into October.  It was September and October when I really "noticed" the most Monarchs (not that we saw hundreds, but we did see more of them in the fall, than we did in the summer).  All year long I deadheaded my butterfly bushes and was rewarded with new blooms that continued to flower until late October.  I continued to see monarchs into mid October, with the last one spotted on October 20.  I assume my backyard was one of the last areas in our neighborhood for the butterflies to nectar, and that is why we noticed the increase in butterflies in September and October? 

 

The one thing that I noticed, (and since the sample size is one, I guess it is not to scientific), was that out of all the butterflies that we tried to photogragh, the monarch was the most skittish around us.  If we got within 10 feet of them, they flew off, circled the yard, then tried to come back once we were a good distance away.  The black swallowtail was the hardest butterfly to photogragh because the little stinkers would not stop opening and closing their wings, and the red admiral was by far the friendliest butterfly of them all.  I had several land on my shirt, my shoes, and it almost seemed like if we ignored them while trying to take pictures of the monarchs or black swallowtails, they would get mad, land right next to you, and expect their own private photo shoot even though we had hundreds of pictures of them already    

[Curt P 5]

Last year was a slow year for monarchs for me, very few showed up until late in the year. Be interesting to see what happens this year.