The INVASION of the LADY BUGS
I’ve always been enamored of these sweet bugs. They look, to me, like little old ladies dressed in their Sunday best. They are fun to watch as they scurry along on our vegetable and flower stems outside. They are a great boon to gardeners too as they help rid them of aphids and spider mites.
This year, however, I have a problem ! I been inundated with Lady Bugs INDOORS. Why have they suddenly appeared? Where did they come from and do they present any health problems for me?
Having none of the answers to these questions I turned to the Internet and here’s what I found. Evidently the Lady Bug that we are familiar with is not the beetle that invades our homes. These are an imported species and are the multicolored Asian lady beetle.
These beetles congregate in large numbers during the late fall and cluster on the sides of homes or other buildings. They do not spend their winters under bark or leaf litter like the regular Lady Bugs do.
The Asian lady bugs, once inside the house, hibernate until the warmth lures them out and they begin crawling about. They don’t seem to feed on anything, nor do they damage anything in the home. They also are not carriers of diseases, nor do they sting.
So I guess I have nothing to worry about, and, after all, they will only become pests if I allow them to “bug” me (pardon the pun).
posted by Ginnie at 6:41 AM
8 Comments:
Our province released a gazillion of these about ten years ago. It was crazy. Some of their descendants still remain in the cottage .
I can't remember who or where, but I know someone else that was inundated with them once year. Apparently they do no damage, so I would just scoop them up and put them outside.
Another imported species though and that's not good.
You can thank the Gov. for the large population of Asian Ladybugs, they imported them by the thousands, The farmers in the farm belt complained and called wolf or aphids and the expert ag man said the aphids were asian aphids so he suggested using asian ladybugs to eat the asian aphids. It turns out they were American aphids. If they had used local species of ladybugs they migrate to the mountain and do not bit man or use people home as a nesting box. New blog on the Hx. of the Ladybug: http://historyoftheladybug.blogspot.com/
We just chant, "Ladybug, ladybug, fly away home, Your house is on fire and your children are alone. " Then blow on them gently and they go home.
Be thanksful they aren't the Colorado Potato Beetles witch is much bigger and a nuisance if if you grow potatoes
.
We have this problem every year here.
If you're having a colder than usual winter, (which according to my Ginny that lives in Raleigh you are) they will come inside. I just vacuum them up. They still keep coming back but at least I can keep some control over the population!
Love Di
Mia loves those lady bugs..she wants alot of them she said. The thing is that I have explained to her that they are a pest in other areas of the planet.. just this morning I explained it to her, and here you are showing us that it is so... isn't that a co incidence? :)
I worked for a planetarium in New Orleans, Louisiana where we would have a mass influx of lady bugs every summer. They appeared as crawling specks on the inside of the dome and would buzz around the audience- strange.
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