Lady Bugs - Count The Dots, Before You Whack It

We have an infestation, they are everywhere, in the yard and in the house. They land on us outside and a few have found their way to the upstairs bedroom. These are orange colored Lady Bugs and this spring I read on a posting here on the Brug Forum that they are a plant eating pest, well maybe or maybe not, it depends on the number of dots.

These are the orange colored plant eating Lady Beetles:
Mexican bean beetle - 8 black dots on each wing cover
Squash beetle - 7 dots on each wing cover

Beneficial Lady Bugs can be white, yellow, pink, orange, red or black, and usually have spots. They are the natural enemies of many insect pests. A single lady beetle can consume as many as 5,000 aphids in its lifetime, so we sure don't want to whack them. The above information was from this webpage http://www.uky.edu/Ag/Entomology/entfacts/fldcrops/ef105.htm

It's difficult (at least for me) to count the dots, so in the future I'm determined to leave them to their eating of insects unless I see leaf damage as shown on the web page referenced above.

Whack or not to whack, it's an important decision.

Judy

LOL Judy - so are you infested with the good guys or the bad guys?

Actually they are the good ones, about time I got a break!!! They are the Asian Lady Bug which was imported to combat other insects, such as aphids.

Judy

PS Someone paid good money for them and they flew to my yard because the eating was better.

and the bad news is... they smell, crawl in anywhere to hibernate and they bite. I am almost scared to know what they'll combat fire ants with... : )

"When disturbed, they may secrete an odorous, distasteful fluid out of their joints to discourage enemies"

I can attest that they do secrete a fluid, but I don't know that it is odorous and distasteful. I wonder what scientist stuck his nose in the fluid. lol lol

Woody and I have had a good time this evening. I went in search of him to "show Bob", that's when he squirted me. He didn't prior so I wonder if it had anything to do with artificial light.

Woody, Bob and I are off to bed, I hope we don't squesh him. I don't think Woody will bite.

Judy

(ROTFLOL)

For the last few years, we have had these beetles by the thousands. At night I would vacuum them from the ceiling above the lights in the living room. They crawled around on my plants and I let that happen, but when they would ping off the ceiling and land in my iced tea, it was time to get rid of them. This year, I sprayed the outside of the house with a product that is out in the garage right now. Demon, I believe, but I'm not sure. Something new for me anyway, and it got a lot of the beetles and the box elder bugs. I'm not having a big problem this year, but I think that's because most of them went to Judy's house.

Oh its easy to smell when you get a vacuum cleaner bag nearly full of them! Peeeewwww! I've been fortunate, but my mother's house and some friends have been infested- 100s of dead beatles in the windowsills, especially upstairs.

Oh I must explain, Woody is/was the color of oak wood but had no dots. They really are interesting.

Brugie, funny posting about them having come to my house. I think your situation was worse than mine. Here there are just enough to be a pest but still be interesting. Having 1000's on the ceiling would not be interesting, it would be horrible!!

I didn't find Woody smushed in the bed but he's not to be found anywhere else this morning. I think they were just passing through because I can't find ANY this morning.

Judy

We get them here too but not a huge amount of them.
When they get in the house I get rid of them quickly as they do bite.

OK if anyone has the ones that bite, please count the dots and let us know. I'm betting it's the leaf eaters that bite.

Judy

Actually, we didn't have thousands in the house, but we sure did have that many outside. Those that came in, probably came in on our clothes or on plants as I brought them in. Still, they were a real pain in the rear and when trying to pot plants outside, I couldn't even begin to count the times they bit me. Nasty little creatures. At least where humans are concerned.

I'm allergic to all insect bites, so I'm so proud we don't have that species here..... now watch me get bit today. lol lol

Judy

Judy I'll have to wait till next summer to count the dots.
When the night temps started getting into the 20's here I heard them say they were heading to TN. :)

(lol lol) Well I think they heard on the radio that it was going down to 30F Thursday night, so they're headed to the Gulf Coast.

Still warm here, and rumors of another Santa Ana wind condition for the weekend, so they could ride the winds in here. LOL Nobody tell them, okay!?!

here are some sites on how to deal with them. the first one tells how to id it and that it bites. its a pest control site so scroll down.

http://www.epestsupply.com/asian_beetles.html

http://www.wvu.edu/~agexten/ipm/insects/ladybeetle.htm

http://ipm.osu.edu/lady/icup.htm


there are also a few good threads here on Daves about them. i hate them even though they are a good thing but in numbers they are bad to me. and they bite.

you all can have mine. lol if it gets bad they will be sprayed. hehe

One of those links makes a good horror story!! We haven't turned on the heat so I guess they went to find a warmer place to live, but I would hate to think they are in the walls.

I'll winter them over if they don't bite me, cause they are so good at getting rid of aphids and such. Now how to I build a Asian Lady Bug house. (just being silly here)

Judy

This message was edited Nov 1, 2006 4:38 PM

http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/422665/

and this thread is from last year

http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/554403/