I had seen adult harlequin bugs* before, but never the nymph stage. Both life stages are a major pest of cabbage and related brassica crops, feeding on the stems and leaves with their piercing-sucking mouthparts. That didn’t seem to be happening on the bladderpods today, as far as I could see. But who knows that those sneaky little mouth-straws are doing!

*This is different from the insect known in Australia as a harlequin bug, Dindymus versicolor.