Yes they hit my honeysuckle every year. If you can get to them early before they get a big hold on the vine it will help. You can take a hose and blast some of them off but I also use a product called neem oil. It is an oil that smothers them and does other things to them . They dont die right away but they forget to eat and breed . They also like to hide in the closed cluster leaves.

Heres another story. A few years ago I had salvia subrotunda that was infested with aphids and it was a pathetic looking thing hanging all limp. When I went to pull it out of ground I saw this ladybug on it, so I decided to leave alone for a few days and each day I would go out and watch her work. I had heard people say what this bug can do. She was one busy bug over and under each leaf. Anyway that plant turned out to be the largest and healthiest plant in my garden.

Thanks hummersteve,

I'll look into the neem oil. As for hosing them, it's so early I haven't even taken the garden hose out of the garage.

I had aphides real bad a couple of years ago on my rose of sharon and I bought a bag of like 500 or so lady bugs, let my kids release them at the bottom of the plant...the aphids were gone in a couple of weeks and my kids really enjoyed it. The nursery where I bought them said the lady bug larvae eat more aphids than the full grown lady bugs.

Hey Dave check out the site I have listed below. It has recipes for natural methods of controlling insects. I had a problem with aphids last year so I used the orange peel spray recipe on their site. Within a week or so, they were gone. Insecticidal soap is better, but it's not 100% safe for birds. However, I can honestly say that a little bit of orange peel isn't going to hurt anything (except maybe the insects!).

ghorganics.com

Two applications of insecticidal soap and one of homemade citrus spray seem to have destroyed all aphids. The vine looks a bit shabby but nevertheless the first bloom is coming along fine...

After a resurgence of aphids on almost every cluster, I cut the vine back to a few inches. Lots of growing season left......

Early this year in march when we had all this summer like weather my goldflame was infested badly with aphids. So knowing we had plenty of season left I cut it back and removed every leaf on it not taking a chance of any hidden eggs. Now it has leafed beautifully and clusters are starting to open and I havent found a single evidence of aphids. This method is not 100% sometimes they can re infest but this time it seems to have worked.

The Lonicera sempervirens is making a comeback. Good thing, because it hides my ugly gas meter!

Well, the vine grew back OK, but no blooms. Looking forward to next year.