Ladybug, fly Away!

text and photo : Norma A. Hubbard  (April 2013)

When I see all the ladybugs in and around my house, I am reminded of a version of an old nursery rhyme:

Ladybug, Ladybug,
Fly away home,
Your house is on fire,
And your children are alone!

The original rhyme was “Ladybird” with “your children will roam” and there is an even grimmer version that states, “your children will burn”! There is also a superstition about it being bad luck to kill a ladybug, but if you chant a verse of the rhyme and the ladybug flies away, you will be granted a wish.

The ‘ladybugs’ we have in our area are not really ladybugs, but Multi-colored Asian lady beetles (Harmonia axyridis; Family: Coccinellidae). Other names include, Ladybird (England), Halloween lady beetle (due to its pumpkin color and the fact that swarms are often seen around Halloween), Japanese lady beetle or Asian lady beetle (because Japan was the country of origin).

The Asian lady beetle was first introduced to North America in 1988 as natural pest control for crops. These tiny bugs eat harmful plant pests such as aphids, mites and scales. An adult is capable of consuming 90 to 270 aphids per day, and each larva can consume 600 to 1,200 aphids. This beetle can live three to four years in good conditions. They can produce two or even three generations in a summer. They lay their bright yellow eggs in clusters of about 20 on the undersides of leaves. Lar- vae look nothing like the adults; they look like macro crocodiles with spiky spines on elongated bodies. While they are effective pest control, like most non-native species, the ladybug has become a bit of a ‘pest’ itself. Birds tend not to eat these bugs because they smell bad. When alarmed, beetles release a smelly, yellow fluid from their leg joints so that the smell, along with their bright colour, serves as a warning of bad taste to predators. Entomologists are waiting to see if any natural predators will appear to keep the beetles in check.

Swarms of Asian lady beetles appear in the spring. While they are annoying, they are generally harmless. Unlike real pests, like carpenter ants or termites, that eat away at our homes, beetles just hibernate in them. If you have beetles in your house, Cornell University recommends to vacuum the bugs as they appear, and seal cracks around windows and other areas in your homes in the summer before the beetles look for a place to hibernate. My house is apparently ideal for these lady beetles as it has white clapboard sliding (beetles prefer light colours) with a warm western exposure; they love it here. In the spring (or even warm winter days) the bugs begin to enter my home. There can be hundreds of them in a week! Thankfully, once the weather is warmer outside, they tend to go out of, rather than come into, the house.

If you have children, or if you like bugs, there is fun project online : www.lostladybug.org/ This site has lots of activities including how to identify ladybugs and Asian lady beetles. You can send in pictures to be part of their research; this would be a great project for Elementary teachers.

References: entomology.cornell.edu/cals/entomology/extension/idl/ upload/Multicolored-Asian-Lady-Beetle.pdf