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permaculture - [permaculture] Lady bugs or lady bird beetles

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  • From: Meg Mullett <meg@kcnet.com>
  • To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [permaculture] Lady bugs or lady bird beetles
  • Date: Fri, 24 Oct 2003 08:57:54 -0500

The multicolored Asian lady beetle Harmonia axyridis converges and seeks
a protected area in which to hibernate for the winter. Some may
overwinter underneath siding, roof shingles, landscaping timbers, or
leaf litter. Others slip through cracks and crevices and come indoors,
where they make themselves at home. In their native home of Japan, they
choose rocky outcrops facing south and west, that catch the winter sun
and hold some of that warmth through the night.

Unfortunately for the lady beetles, the warm security of your home is
too warm usually to go into hibernation, so they will stay active and
probably eventually starve to death in there. This can become something
of a nuisance, because if you really have lots of them in there, they
emit a disagreeable odor when disturbed, and thousands of them dead and
decaying also emits an odor. - Which is attractive to other insects that
come to eat them.

When I find clusters of them around my house, I relocate them to our
south facing woodpile. Lots of little cracks and crevices in there for
them to hide in, and as they eat scale as well as aphids, I think they
might find some food in there.

They appear to be attracted to light colored surfaces that catch the
sun. If you really want to try to overwinter them and keep them in your
garden, perhaps you could create a nice winter home for them with leaf
litter and/or wood piles covered lightly with white plastic, or even a
few boards painted white.

A google search on "asian lady beetle overwinter" shows lots of info, if
youre interested. - As well as some info on how to build an inexpensive
trap.

Hope this helps,
Meg in KS



> Robert Waldrop rmwj at soonernet.com
> Fri Oct 24 01:09:27 EDT 2003
>
> Sorry, i was beguiled by our global warming autumn, it is 75 degrees
> outside tonight. If you are successful, be sure to post how you did
> it, as that would surely be useful for the rest of us. i love my lady
> bugs, i haven't a clue where they go/what they do in the winter but
> each year i seem to have more of them.




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