I have been outside cleaning the maple leaves out of my flower beds. As I started gently racking the leaves off I discovered underneath them loads of Laydy Bugs. Wow. We must have thousands of them. But I'm not sure how many will survive as we have nothing for them to eat right now. I plan on moving some to my veggy garden if there are non over there. I know they have said that because of our weather warming up so early the bugs this year are going to be very plentiful. Good and bad. I'll take these girls anyday. Maybe they will be dining on earwig larva. You go girls. I hate those critters as well and slugs. More Pink Ladybugs. ( photo / image / picture from Tooty2shoes's Garden ) And more Lady Bugs galore. ( photo / image / picture from Tooty2shoes's Garden )
I found a similar thing yesterday in my yard...a piece of bark from my Maple tree FULL of Lady bugs! I left them where I found them as the weren't the 'real' ones.
Stratsmom maybe I could mail you some? I wonder. Netty what did yours look like? At first I thought that they weren't Lady Bugs because they are pink. But I did some online research and found out they are a type of Lady bug-coleomegilla macul ata. But that their bodies are more almond shaped than round like the Lady bugs we think of.
Ladybird lovefest ( photo / image / picture from Palustris's Garden ) This is about a third of the ones on my Compost bin side yesterday.
Not real? As in impersonators? I know there are ladybugs with different spot counts. But not real? Please explain. Jerry
Palustris those are some good looking girls. Jerry- you are right on the spot count difference. The ones I have in my garden are called the 12 spot Lady beetle and also have a different body shape. I guess what I meant was the fact that we have Asian beetles, as well as our native Lady beetles. They look very similar to each other. But the Asian are the ones that will invade your home in the fall looking for a place to hibernate. Our native Lady bug does not do that from what I have been reading. Palustris above pic is what people picture when you say Lady bug. But I was quite surprised to find out that there are quite a lot of varieties of them. Thank you Frank. I love those girls.
Every spring ladybugs move into the house. We have them on the window sills, crawling on the floors, and trying to get into the cupboards. It fascinates the cat! I spend a few days picking up ladybugs and putting them outside, then the invasion is over. I have never found the reason for this.
That is very interesting that they do that in spring. I bet those are the Asian one and not our native lady bug. But either way they are great to have in ones garden.
Jane those visitors probably spent the winter in your walls, attic, etc and as the temperatures warm up in Spring they start moving around and sometimes will get confused as to which way they should be going and wind-up coming out of the wall inside the house instead of outside. Even the most common Lady Bug in North America Hippodamia convergent will sometimes crawl into cracks and openings in homes looking for a warm place to spent the winter. But the Asian Lady Beetle is definitely more aggressive about it.
Oh well, since we share our home with a resident rat snake under the house and several toads, I guess I can't get upset about ladybugs spending the winter here.
Palustris those sound really neat. I'll have to check online for a pic of those. Toni-those asian lady beetles sure are a lot more agressive. I final got our patio door to seal tighter. In the fall I hated vacuming them off of the ceiling, and walls. Marlingardener sounds like some neat residents. We have several Grass snakes and toadies also around the yard. I'll have to look up what a rat snake looks like. Netty you are right. Those Pink Lady bugs sure do bite. OUCH! I had to quite racking out my flower beds as I was being bitten by those little ladies.
