Garden Bug of the Month: Ladybugs

Lady Bug, Lady Bug, Fly Away Home...

It's a common belief that ladybugs bring good luck. Perhaps you've been lucky enough to find lady bugs in your garden, or puzzled to find them in your home during the winter. We've compiled a variety of ladybug facts to perhaps unravel a few mysteries:

• Coccinellidaeis is the family of beetles known as ladybugs (in North America), ladybirds (UK, Ireland, Australia, South Africa), and lady beetles (preferred by some scientists), other names include ladyclock, lady cow, and lady fly.

Colors, spots, and stripes?

• Most orange ladybugs are an Asian species imported in the late 1970s to fight crop- and tree-eating pests.

• Ladybugs also come in pink, yellow and even black.
  
  
• The bright colors of ladybugs warn predators of the insect's disagreeable taste.
• Can have as many as 20 spots.....or no spots at all

• The number of spots on a ladybug do not identify its age.

• The number of spots on a ladybug identify the species.

How Ladybugs got their name

According to legend in Europe, during the Middle Ages, swarms of insects were destroying the crops. The farmers prayed to the Virgin Mary for help. Soon ladybugs arrived and ate the pests saving the crops. Their red wings were said to represent the Virgin Mary's cloak. The black spots were symbolic of both her joys and her sorrows. The farmers began calling them "Our Lady's Bird" and "The Beetles of Our Lady". Over time they became popularly known as "Lady Beetles".

Ladybug Metamorphosis
In the springtime, ladybugs move into dense foliage where they will live, feed, lay eggs, mate and pupate.

• New life starts when a female ladybug lays a cluster of eggs (from 20 to 50 eggs) near an aphid colony which hatch in about seven days, usually in March and April.

• Ladybug larvae resemble miniature blue-black alligators. The larvae are larger than their parents, and eat more than them, too. Each larvae will eat more than 400 aphids during their brief larval stage of about two weeks. When aphids become scarce, the larvae will devour smaller ladybug larvae; this cannibalism is a form of population control.

• When ladybugs emerge from their pupal cocoons, a few hours in the sun will dry their wings and deepen their color.

• In autumn ladybugs supplement their diet with pollen to store up energy. Then large groups of ladybugs over-winter (hibernate) together in a dry, protected spot, such as at the base of a tree, along a fence row, under a fallen tree, or under a rock.

• When spring temperatures rise and the aphid population blossoms, ladybugs will emerge to lay their eggs. For several days ladybugs will then devote themselves to a frenzy of eating and mating. Once clusters of yellow-orange eggs are laid to continue the lifecycle, the adult ladybugs will die.

Should ladybugs show up as unwanted guests inside your home, it's most likely the Asian lady beetle. Asian lady beetles can be yellowish-orange to red with 19 black spots on the back that vary in darkness or may even be missing.

Ladybugs in your home are only a nuisance since they do not feed, lay eggs, or reproduce indoors; nor will they damage your house structure, carpets, furniture.

Should you find some ladybugs in your home this winter, consider it natures way of letting you know that you have a gap or crack in your home to repair before less pleasant creatures gain entry.

Natural Pest Control

• Gardeners and farmers alike use ge numbers of ladybugs to control pests (aphids, spider mites). In the 1880s, California Citrus Growers purchased thousands of Australian ladybugs to save crops from a destructive scale insect that came from Australia and was killing large groves of lemon and orange trees. It took two years, but $1,500 worth of ladybugs conquered the scale insect infestation and the trees bore fruit again. The Australian ladybugs saved the California citrus industry that is worth half a billion dollars today.

• The Mall of America releases thousands of ladybugs as a natural means of pest control for its indoor gardens.

By the way...in case you were wondering:

Ladybug! Ladybug!
Fly away home.
Your house is on fire.
And your children will burn;
All except for little Nan,
Weaving gold laces
as fast as she can.

This children's rhyme dates back to Medieval England when the farmers would clear the fields after the harvest to prepare them planting by burning the old Hop vines. The poem was sung to warn ladybugs who were still eating aphids on the vines. Her children (larvae) could crawl away from the danger, but the immobile pupae (Nan) remained fastened to the plants (laces) and couldn't escape.

Sources:
http://greenmethods.com/site/weblog/2007/12/red-ladybug-black-ladybug/
http://www.extension.iastate.edu/newsrel/2001/oct01/oct0108.html
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/421321/gardening_tip_ladybugs_help_control.html?cat=32
http://www.celticbug.com/Legends/Lore.html
http://www.everything-ladybug.com/ladybug-lore.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki
http://www.earthlife.net/insects/coccinel.html