but will not the systemic pesticides also wipe out the ladybeetles?
i have used the following method for years and have been very successful with it (except when it comes to GUAVA, since they have their own variety of ants):
at night time, when the yellowjackets are not around (i have a fatal allergy to them so i like to avoid them at all costs!!), i take a flashlight and wander around the garden looking for aphids...there seems to be a variety of coloured ones these days ...i must assume it is a type of camouflage...?? at any rate, when i DO find a colony, i put on a pair of surgical gloves (or those rubber gloves if i'm working on rose bushes) and squish the aphids where they lie slurping up the sap from the plant(s) they're covering. i flick whatever ants are in the area off the various leaves and then......i LEAVE the dead aphids ON the plant.
i've discovered when the new day comes and new aphids fly in to take over the next shift (so to say) ;o), they literally WILL NOT touch down upon plants where their dead buddies lay squished upon the stems and leaves.
of course, it is necessary to repeat the procedure when the dead and squished ones fall off or are washed off by rainfall....but usually by then, the ladybeetles have come to the rescue somehow alerted by the sight or scent or whatever..? and ladybeetle larva can be quite voracious.
ok. that's the end of "gypsy's organic advice" for this day (albeit twelve days later--but then, for those of us in my zone {usda zoneNH4a}, we have yet to encounter our ground much less worry about 6-leggers yet.)