Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum
ALMOST BEEKEEPING - RELATED TOPICS => GARDENING AROUND THE HOUSE => Topic started by: mtman1849 on September 19, 2008, 06:21:51 pm
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I think I am going to build me a ladybug house with all of the trees I have growing now I have notice that they are being eatin by aphids it think that is the way you spell it and I heard ladybugs love to eat them. Does anyone one else raise ladybug.
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Chances are if you have aphids then you already have lady bugs. They lay their eggs right in the middle of large clusters of them.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v735/mrilovetheants/Ants%202008/LilyLadybugeggs.jpg
The resulting larva look nothing like you'd expect.
http://www.dereila.ca/whispers/Larva.jpg
They don't exactly do a great job of killing controlling their numbers. Other types of insects also eat aphids and live in similar conditions to that of lady bugs. So building a nesting box would be beneficial
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Holy crap, that's their larva? Man I feel stupid for having killed those things in the past. No wonder the aphids were so bad last year. Good thing I haven't touched them this year, I'll leave 'em be from now on.
I also didn't know you could build nest boxes for them... I'll have to go look up how to do that.
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Hey mtmn, wish you were raising lovebugs, we got all you could have here!!!
They're everywhere, in the air, on my truck, on my neighbor's truck, on my neighbor's neighbors truck, down the street...
...JP
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MILTA- awesome shots as usual.
In recent years, I have had numerous ladybugs hatchout in my house in ferbruary and march-anyone else experience this phenomenon? They look so neat crawling around the master bath!
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Konasdad, in response to your queery. About 8 years ago we had a barage of ladybugs. The air outside was filled with them, I have never witnessed this enormous amount of flying insects. I did take video, but it is somewhere, haven't had a chance to ever get them to disc. ANyways, during the next couple of weeks, these ladybugs migrated through my open windows into my house. In the kitchen and living room the corner ceilings were a mass of bunches of ladybugs, the recollection of this is not overly clear, but I can remember several of my family members coming over to witness this event. Never seen it again. By the time winter was over, the clusters had disippated to next to nothing. No clue where they went, perhaps through the open windows, back outside. But it was indeed a phenomonon!!! Beautiful and most wonderful day, Cindi
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It seems I read that the bugs that invade your house in the winter are actually Japanese Bettles not our true Lady Bug !
Let me know if this is correct, I do know if you swat one and squarch it , it leaves a orange stain that don't wash off very good.
Thanks
Bee-Bop
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It seems I read that the bugs that invade your house in the winter are actually Japanese Bettles not our true Lady Bug !
Let me know if this is correct, I do know if you swat one and squarch it , it leaves a orange stain that don't wash off very good.
Thanks
Bee-Bop
To be "correct" lady bugs aren't native to America. The common red ones we see all came from Europe and the more colorful ones that are orange, yellow, and I've even seen gray/blue were imported from Asia. Despite this they are firmly established and beneficial. I have never herd any entomologiest complain that they are here.
June Bugs I don't know anything about. Japanese Beetles are not native and thrive here. The larval form eats the roots to grasses and the adult form nibbles on your prized roses.
This isn't my specialty but when winter comes it's likely the adults die or else hibernate in wooden structures. The other option (and likely what June Bugs do) is lay eggs before winter comes. In the spring they hatch and the larval form feeds on whatever the species normally does and come June they reach adulthood.
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Bee-bop. I don't know if your queary was asked to me or Konasdad. But the bugs that hibernated in my home were indeed true ladybugs, or ladybeetles, whichever you choose to call them. It was an amazing event, which I had a digital camera then, the movie clips are somewhere amongst my VHS tapes that I have not yet transposed to DVD, one day that day will come. Beautiful and most wonderful day, Cindi
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If you want to try raising ladybugs, put the house up high. I used to work for a cable company in N. Florida, and I would find caches of thousands of them in power poles. They never seemed to like holes less than twentyfive feet high.
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They were definitely ladybugs. It happens evry year now for maybe five yrs in a row. They will fly around house for about a week then die from lack of food I suppose.
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I have lady bugs every year here. They fill up the window sills in the late fall.
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It seems I read that the bugs that invade your house in the winter are actually Japanese Bettles not our true Lady Bug !
Let me know if this is correct, I do know if you swat one and squarch it , it leaves a orange stain that don't wash off very good.
Thanks
Bee-Bop
To be "correct" lady bugs aren't native to America. The common red ones we see all came from Europe and the more colorful ones that are orange, yellow, and I've even seen gray/blue were imported from Asia. Despite this they are firmly established and beneficial. I have never herd any entomologiest complain that they are here.
June Bugs I don't know anything about. Japanese Beetles are not native and thrive here. The larval form eats the roots to grasses and the adult form nibbles on your prized roses.
This isn't my specialty but when winter comes it's likely the adults die or else hibernate in wooden structures. The other option (and likely what June Bugs do) is lay eggs before winter comes. In the spring they hatch and the larval form feeds on whatever the species normally does and come June they reach adulthood.
Now that this topic has resurfaced I should correct my statement. America actually has 400 species of lady bugs that are native. However thanks to some very questionable organic farming methods something like 90% of the lady bugs we see are imported from Asia. I can't identify one from the other but some are kind of http://bugguide.net/node/view/179/bgimage?from=1320pretty (http://bugguide.net/node/view/179/bgimage?from=1320pretty) despite how rare they've become.
A new Citizen Science organization called http://hosts.cce.cornell.edu/ladybeetles/The Lost Ladybug Project (http://hosts.cce.cornell.edu/ladybeetles/The Lost Ladybug Project) has a website about it. Feel free to send them some pics you've taken, as they're trying to catalog what species are left. Someone found one in their yard thought to be extinct.
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Don't have to, they are all over the southwestern portion of my house in September. True they are not native, more like the Asian variety. They have become a nuisance in some areas though still beneficial in some respects.
David
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Try "GARDENS ALIVE" we buy some every year.......