Registered: Aug 2000
Location:
Posts: 3539

Run for your lives!!!

Hordes of maddening ladybugs headed this way

By Gary Gerhardt
Denver Rocky Mountain News Staff Writer


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Asian lady beetles are beginning to invade Colorado and threaten to become maddening to homeowners.

The beetles, one of 80 species commonly called ladybugs, are unusual in that they are allies to agriculture and household nuisances at the same time. Outdoors they consume billions of plant pests such as aphids; indoors they can cluster by the hundreds, staining walls and fabrics and letting out an unpleasant odor.

"Their numbers definitely are increasing in Colorado," said Whitney Cranshaw, Colorado State University entomologist. "I have my students collect 10 insects each for my classes and last year they brought in one Asian lady beetle. This year they brought in 100."

The beetles were imported from Japan by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in the 1970s and 1980s to combat crop damaging insects in southern and coastal states.

Since then, the beetles have slowly migrated west, Cranshaw said, first appearing in Colorado in 1998 in Prowers and Larimer counties. This year they've been found in El Paso, Gunnison, Jefferson, Adams, Denver and Boulder counties as well.

In states where the beetles were introduced, the insects now flock by the millions, resting for weeks on houses and outbuildings, flying into food, clamping onto people's skin and clinging to ceilings and floors.

Dan Digman, an agent for the University of Ohio cooperative extension service, said the invasions into homes in Ohio have been a serious problem for the past six years.

"We receive tons of calls from people wanting to know how to get them out of their homes," he said. "We tell them to put screens over openings in the soffits and gables and winterize windows and doors to keep them out."

The beetles are only a problem while the weather is relatively warm and while they are migrating from orchards and fields to wintering areas. When it gets cold, they die off or find a place to winter in piles of leaves, logs or outcroppings.

"It really came as a shock to me when they first came to my home," said Tammy Shepherd, who lives near Port Smith, Ohio. "I came home from work and thought it was a swarm of bees.

"They were all over the outside of my house and they swarmed all over me, and I sort of panicked at first. Then I realized they weren't attacking. I was just in their way.

"I went in the house and there were 200 or more inside as well."

Shepherd bought a shop vacuum and began what has became a daily battle with the insects that has lasted for weeks.

"At night, they sleep on the ceiling. None dropped off on me during the night, but they're there when I wake up in the mornings," she said. "We have hardwood floors and my neighbor told me they were all over her carpeting. They also cling to drapes and get that orange slime on them."

If the beetles are trapped in a house for any length of time, they will die from the heat or lack of food.


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Species profile
Scientific name: Harmonia axyridis

Description: One-third inch in length, semispherical or dome-shape. Vary from yellowish-orange to red; deep orange is most common. There are 19 spots on the back that vary in darkness. Spots may be faint or missing on some. There is a black "W" shaped mark on the thorax in front of the wings.

Habitat: Forested areas, ornamental and agricultural crops in spring and summer. During winter in rock outcroppings or on homes or porches, garages and outbuildings brightly illuminated by sun. Also cracks and crevices around windows and door frames, beneath exterior siding and roof shingles, and within wall voids, attics and soffits.

Lifespan: Can live 10 months or more.

Food: Aphids, scale insects, pollen, nectar, honeydew.

Sources: University of Connecticut Integrated Pest Management Program; E. Richard Hoebeke, Cornell University entomologist; Timothy Gibb, Purdue extension office; Michael Potter, University of Kentucky Department of Entomology; William Lyon, Ohio State University extension service.

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location: Delaware
Posts: 5710

I find these things in my house almost all winter long!

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=^..^=

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Registered: Aug 2000
Location: I don't fukn' know!
Posts: 5137

well that explains why I've seen so many ladybugs this year.

Man people never listen, this kinda crap has happened over a bazillion times when people accidently or purposefully bring species from one country to another...

Duch elm, House sparrows, rats, cats, etc. all have managed to nearly kill off the native species.

People never fukin learn!

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you don't have to drag me down, I descend.

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location: Los Angeles, Ca
Posts: 2109

One of the guys I used to trap with collects and sells ladybugs to gardening stores. He makes good money to box them and ship them out. People purchase them, take them home and spread them around their yards.

If anyone lives in Colorado, they should get to collecting.

CAL

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"The desert is my church, and hunting is my god."

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Registered: Aug 2000
Location:
Posts: 3539

I hear the also stay crunchy in milk.
We can feed the hungry with a balance of tard meat and ladybugs.

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Registered: Oct 2000
Location: Illinois
Posts: 1217

They infested my house a few weeks ago here in the midwest. I swear that they're worse than roaches. At least roaches run when you turn on the light!

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Pickle beets are not treats,
no matter what they say.

Yes I know I'm inane/insane.

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