little black things- flies? on courgette flowers

[ButterpieBride]

Any ideas? Loads of little black fly-like things all over my lovely yellow corgette flowers.

Do they look like shiny small beetles? These would be storm bugs. Failing that, it's blackfly (aphids) I think?

Pollen beetles. They go for anything yellow. Same things you find in oodles of daffodils. They had a population explosion in the UK when oilseed rape became a popular crop.

They are also highly resistant to pesticides though generally easy to shake out if you need the flowers for deep-frying.

Failing that, cover the plants with fine mesh, like old net curtains...

You could make a garlic spray and try that - won't hurt the courgettes at all. I can't guarantee that it will work, but it got rid of all the blackfly on my spud flowers and a few other things as well.

Either stew garlic leaves, or crush some cloves and steep them in v hot water. Easy peasy.

They are mad for the yellow flowers those things.

I found that when they invaded my flowers would close and then drop off without developing into fruit. Those flowers would look mouldy inside. I didn't find any of my organic sprays worked so I pulled off any flowers that were infested and squished them or dropped them into a bucket of water. It seems drastic but they were dropping off anyway.

It worked to a point and they're gone now but that might just be the non stop rain and colder weather we've had.