Aphid Honeydew

[xylaria]

Does anyone know of a productive way of harvesting aphid honeydew?

I was pruning a friends hazel tree the other week and got covered in the sugar coated insects and discovered that the ants are on to something good when it comes to farming aphids. Me and my daughter found that licking the infected leaves makes for a very nice snack, but is it not very effiicent, i figure if there was known way extracting honeydew it would make for a sugary insect protien rich dish. Any ideas?

 

[Wayland]

Feed the aphids to the ants and then eat the ants.....

 

[jackmcmanus21]

Feed the aphids to the ants and then eat the ants.....

haha get your protien while you're at it

 

[IntrepidStu]

Feed the aphids to the ants and then eat the ants.....

Ardvark...Crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside!!

 

[EdS]

usual way is to get a colony of bees to "milk" the aphids then use the honey.

 

[xylaria]

Ants have this way of tickling the aphids to get them poop out more honeydew, but thats would very fiddly to replicate. what i might try is next time i come across a heavly infested plant is scrape as much as i can off and then roast very gently in the hope it would turn out like seseme snaps.

Has anyone else tried eating sticky aphids or do you just think i am wierd?

 

[y0dsa]

How about fermenting the sticky leaves? Just a thought.

 

[xylaria]

How about fermenting the sticky leaves? Just a thought.

Now thats an idea. You need quite a bit of sugar to do a normal brew, and can't even guess how much sugar there is in sticky tree.

 

[headrox_inc]

Why would you want aphid poo, just a strange thing to me and what can you do with it?

The Survivalist

 

[xylaria]

Why would you want aphid poo, just a strange thing to me and what can you do with it?

It is sugary tastes nice and it is very copious on infected plants. Go lick a leaf of an infected tree (without wood ants) and you will understand, uuummm taste sensation. And hell is beats moaning about aphids on my runner beans.

 

[headrox_inc]

well i'll be sure took look out for the aphid poop and give it a good licking when i do, dirtly sweet little aphids haha

Laters

The Survivalist