Here's another photo of the mantis, taken just now

She is staying at the top of the plant, and the small bugs I found earlier today were only at the bottom of the plant. The mantis has not appeared to move much in the past two days, but I have no idea what she does at night. Someone on the California forum said that she might be looking for a place to lay eggs, but I do not think a chili plant is as good for that as a Bay tree. Also, according to your link, the mantis will eat beneficial insects as well as harmful ones, but since it will not harm the chili plant, I will not remove it.

I do encourage lady beetles and spiders and try to help the spiders to build webs on my bromeliads, in case mosquitoes may want to lay eggs in their crowns. When I do not have enough spider webs, I sometimes have to put mosquito bait inside the bromeliad crowns, to get rid of larvae, especially in the Neoregelia in the front yard. Spiders will eat bees, if they catch them, but I still encourage spiders.

I've not seen lacewings in my yard here.

Nice! Yep, too bad they munch on the good guys also. That forum member may be correct.... the beneficials will lay eggs where there's a meal for the young. The soap shouldn't hurt them, but it does indirectly----if you kill off all the prey, beneficials will move on to greener pastures. Nothing like a good old aphid infestation to attract ladybugs and lacewings...lol

Lacewings are awesome. To attract them AND keep them around, you have to not only have prey for the larvae, but nectar for the adults. So you'll want to plant flowers/herbs that they're attracted to.

Here's a couple links...

click here

and here too

Kevin

The mantis is still on this same chili plant and has been there for over a week now. I am beginning to worry that it is eating pollinators, as there are no other insects on that plant. If this is the case, I am concerned that the flowers might not get pollinated, thus reducing the number of chilies I will get. I think I will try to relocate the mantis to my white sapote tree, which does get some other bugs - otherwise I do not have much in the way of insects in my back yard - mostly pollinators.

Pepper flowers are self pollinating. They do not need insects to produce fruit. I would personally prefer the mantis on my pepper plant where it is doing a service for me rather than have to worry about other insects potentially damaging the plant.

Rodney

Ditto what Rodney said. You're lucky to have that mantis there. Plants are outside, right? The wind and breeze alone should be enough to let the plants pollinate themselves. If you're not confident in that, you can go out there with a Q-tip and stick it in the flowers yourself. Just my $0.02. I don't think you have anything to worry about :)

Thanks for that info! I was unaware that pepper flowers were self pollinating because I see bees visiting them. I also thought that I had some cross pollination going on between a Cayenne and Habanero that resulted in a very hot Cayenne-looking volunteer that I had last year. The plant does have quite a few chilies on it already, and so I think I will probably get plenty. Three or four are just now getting ripe, and there are many green ones. Also, I have several plants, but this one is the best one, I think.