Bees & Pollinators›Bee safe pest control
Get rid of the pests. Keep the bees.
Most yard pests in Southern California can be handled with a hose, a bait station and a little patience.
Most pests are somebody's lunch.
Aphids, whiteflies, scale and mites all have hunters living in your yard already: lady beetles, lacewings, hover fly larvae and tiny parasitic wasps. Give them a week before you do anything. A broad spray such as malathion, permethrin or acephate kills the hunters with the pests, which is why UC IPM sees spider mite outbreaks right after that kind of spray. The bees are collateral damage either way.
- Wait a week
- Look for lady beetle larvae
- Skip the broad sprays
A hard spray of water beats a bottle of anything.
Knock them off with a strong stream from the hose and most never climb back. Prune out the curled leaves they hide in. If a plant is still crawling a week later, insecticidal soap or horticultural oil at dusk, on the undersides, kills what it touches and nothing else. Skip it on wilted plants and on days above 90 degrees, per the UC IPM aphid note. The yellow aphids on your milkweed get the hose only. Monarch eggs share that plant.
- Hose first
- Soap or oil at dusk
- Not above 90 F
- Milkweed: water only
The pest behind the pests.
Argentine ants farm aphids and scale for their honeydew and fight off the insects that would eat them. Break that up and the rest often collapses on its own. A sticky band around the trunk keeps them out of a tree. On the ground, enclosed bait stations with about half a percent borate in sugar water, placed on the trails, take the colony down slowly. Never spray pyrethroids on driveways, patios or foundations. UC IPM is blunt about it: those products wash straight into creeks and the ocean.
- Sticky band on trunks
- Borate bait on trails
- No perimeter sprays
Dust and thirst invite them. Water sends them away.
Both move in on thirsty plants in dusty corners. Hose the leaf undersides every few days and rinse the dust off nearby paths. Yellow sticky cards, one for every two plants, tell you whether whiteflies are building or fading. Reflective mulch under young vegetables confuses them while the plants are small. For spider mites, water is most of the cure. Soap and oil work on contact, at dusk, same rules as aphids.
- Hose undersides
- Yellow sticky cards
- Water the dust down
Go out after dark with a flashlight.
Water the bed in the late afternoon, then go out after dark with a flashlight and a glove. Drop them in soapy water. Do it three nights in a row and the numbers fall off a cliff. A two inch copper band around a raised bed keeps them out for good. If you want a bait, iron phosphate is the one that is safe around dogs, kids and birds. Metaldehyde pellets poison dogs and cats, and UC IPM says to keep them out of reach of any pet. Water in the morning and lose the boards and pots they hide under.
- Flashlight patrol
- Copper band
- Iron phosphate only
- Never metaldehyde
After sunset. Never on a flower.
Bees fly by day and go home at dusk. Anything sprayed after sunset has dried before they are back, which is why UC IPM puts spraying between sunset and midnight. Never spray a plant in bloom, and that includes the flowering weeds beside it. Read the label for toxic to bees or extended residual and put those back. Check the plants you buy too: nursery stock is sometimes pretreated, so ask, as Xerces suggests.
- Sunset to midnight
- Nothing in bloom
- Read the bee warning
The one rule that covers everything.
Water first, bait second, spray last, and only at dusk on a plant with no flowers. If a product would need to go on a bloom to work, it is the wrong product.
The worst bee poisons are off the garden center shelf.
Since January 1, 2025, products with imidacloprid, acetamiprid, clothianidin, dinotefuran or thiamethoxam cannot be sold for outdoor home use in California. Only licensed applicators can put them on trees, lawns or ornamental plants. Nearly 150 products left the shelves. Indoor ant baits and pet flea treatments are exempt. The details are on the Department of Pesticide Regulation notice.
- Imidacloprid
- Acetamiprid
- Clothianidin
- Dinotefuran
- Thiamethoxam
Thirty seconds at the shelf.
Every product tells you what it does to bees. It is just printed small. Click through thirteen labels, worst first, and see the rating for each one.
Three things to look for.
Flip any bottle over. The bee warning is required by law and it is always in the same place, under Environmental Hazards.
- The active ingredient. If it ends in thrin, or is one of the five neonics, put it back.
- The words toxic to bees. Highly toxic means it kills on contact and for days after.
- Extended residual. It keeps killing after it dries. Soap and oil never say this, because they stop working once dry.
Ratings from the Xerces Society organic pesticides guide and UC IPM. Label wording is the standard bee hazard statement for each ingredient; check your own bottle.
Things people ask about pests and bees.
Is neem oil safe for bees?
Safer than most, not harmless. The Xerces Society rates neem as medium risk to bees and notes that mixing it with soap raises that risk. It only harms bees that get sprayed directly, so the rules are simple: after sunset, never on a plant in bloom, and never with soap in the same bottle.
Are organic sprays bee safe?
Not automatically. Organic describes where an ingredient came from, not what it does to a bee. Pyrethrins and spinosad are both allowed in organic growing and both are rated high toxicity to bees. Insecticidal soap and horticultural oil are the organic options with the lowest risk, and even those go on at dusk.
Can I still buy imidacloprid in California?
Not for your yard. Since January 1, 2025, products with imidacloprid, acetamiprid, clothianidin, dinotefuran or thiamethoxam can only be sold to and used by licensed applicators for outdoor trees, lawns and ornamental plants. Indoor ant baits and pet flea treatments with the same ingredients are still on shelves because they are exempt.
My milkweed is covered in yellow aphids. What do I do?
Hose them off or wipe them with a gloved hand, and that is it. Those are oleander aphids and they rarely hurt the plant. Monarch eggs and caterpillars are almost certainly on the same stems, and any spray that kills the aphids kills them too. Lady beetle larvae usually clean up the rest within a couple of weeks.
There are little brown bumps stuck to my lemon tree. What are they?
Scale insects. They look like part of the bark, which is the trick. Tiny parasitic wasps usually keep them in check, so the first job is to get the ants off the tree with a sticky band, because ants guard scale from those wasps. If the bumps keep spreading, horticultural oil sprayed on the bark in winter, or in late spring when the crawlers hatch, smothers them without touching a bee. Skip the systemic sprays. The UC IPM scale note covers the timing.
Something is cutting neat circles out of my rose leaves.
That is a leafcutter bee, not a pest. She uses each circle to wrap one egg in a nesting tube. The roses will be fine. If anything, put up a small bee hotel so she has somewhere to raise the next generation.
Does diatomaceous earth hurt bees?
Yes. It works by cutting the waxy coat of any insect that walks through it, and it does not know a bee from an ant. Keep it off flowers and leaves entirely. If you use it, a thin line across an ant trail on concrete is the only place it belongs.
Should I hire a mosquito spraying service?
Most of them fog the yard with pyrethroids, which kill bees, butterflies and the insects that eat mosquitoes, and the mosquitoes come back in a week. Empty anything holding water once a week, put a Bti dunk in ponds and rain barrels you cannot empty, and you have solved most of it for free.
What should I do the first time I see a pest?
Wait a week and look closely. Crusty tan aphids are mummies, which means parasitic wasps are already working. Small black and orange alligator shaped larvae are lady beetles eating for you. If numbers are still climbing after a week, use the hose. Soap or oil at dusk is the third step, not the first.
Keep going.
What to plant for beesTwenty four Southern California plants, bloom months, and a ZIP code nursery finder. Healthy plants get fewer pests.
Build a bee hotelThe right tube sizes, where to hang it, and three builds that take fifteen minutes, an hour, or no work at all.
Bees & PollinatorsThe whole picture: why bees matter, what is happening to them, and the four things anyone can do.
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Written by the Ombee Mobile team, a Southern California wireless company that gives 2.5% of its profits to pollinator conservation. Not bee scientists; we check every fact against the sources named here. Pest guidance follows the UC Statewide IPM notes on aphids, ants, whiteflies, spider mites, scale and snails, and its best practices for protecting bees. Bee toxicity ratings are from the Xerces Society organic pesticides guide. The California rule is from the Department of Pesticide Regulation. Always read the label. Last reviewed September 2026. Photos via Unsplash.