Ants attacking caterpillars, me attacking the green flies

Green Fly on Apple Tree

I wrote last week that I had noticed lots of green fly eggs on some of the apple trees and was expecting an influx, the plan was to go down and spray an organic mixture to deter the the green flies attacking the fruit trees. Well I didn't do it straight away as we were expecting large amounts of rain. The rain would only have washed the mixture away. The rain came and we also had some reasonable sunny spells, then more rain.

Quince soon to flower

So over the weekend and I sprayed the mixture and as you can see from the pictures the eggs have hatched the the green fly are spreading and having a field day, they are mainly on the apple and some of the pear trees. I only managed to get around half the trees with the mixture and will try another dose in the middle of the week, that's with help from my wife. The quince trees need to be sprayed I looked at them on the way home, however I had no more mixture remaining.

I can see some lady birds around so I'm hoping that they will be able to breed and naturally keep the green fly population at bay.

I also noted two cherry trees don't have very many leaves, they did have large amounts of blossom a couple of weeks ago, the trees in questions were in a very soggy part of the orchard last year, and I'm a little worried about them. They are of the Black Prince variety of Cherry.

The smell of apple blossom is now in flow and its lovely. I literally can put my nose into the blossom and smell the scent. Great, if you see some give it a go.

Ants attacking Caterpillar

I also saw a number of caterpillars being attacked by ants. It was normally small groups of ants attacking and then killing the caterpillars. Usually 6 or more ants attacking and pulling the caterpillars apart. It was interesting. The ants are not as organised from what I saw, they grab and pull, literally stretching the Caterpillar and I can't be certain but I get the filling they must pull of bits of skin off from the caterpillar. It may just be the soldier ants doing the attacking and the others carrying on with normal routine work.

I have also seen various butterfly whizzing around, as well as wasps. The bees seems have done a good job at gathering most of the pollen from the blossom. I'm amazing at how good they are.

The grass is growing fast and is still uncut. I'm waiting on my brother having some free time to get the lawn mower down to cut the grass. Hoping sometime next week, Sunday or Monday.