Lady bug lady bug fly away home;
Bring me good weather whenever you come.
When I used to clean houses-several of the home owners fought a never ending battle with lady bugs invading their homes. I’d vacuum up about a gazillion-only to have 2 gazillion waiting on me the next week when I went to clean.
Paul has an army of lady bugs living with him-Granny and Pap not so much-just a few here and there. And me-I never even seen one in our house-until this year.
I figured out early on they like light colored houses-and houses that sit in a sunshiny location. Since our house is wood, and sits on the north side of the mountain, we’ve never had to worry about them till now. And thankfully-so far our lady bug population is more like Granny and Pap’s-minimal.
How about where you live-got lady bugs?
Tipper
Appalachia Through My Eyes – A series of photographs from my life in Southern Appalachia.
Here in Maryland, year after year, we have church-going ladybugs at my church. When it gets warmer, and they make their appearance, I will send a photo. It makes me smile when I see one crawling across the top of thw pew in front of me. They, too, are “precious in His sight,” and we gardeners! Happy Spring!
I remember hearing a few years’ back that we’d gotten invaded by ladybugs because a ship carrying a load of them to farmers here sunk off the US Eastern Seaboard. Can’t say whether that’s true or not, but it sure seemed like it at the time.
They’re beneficial garden creatures, so they don’t bother me. If they get inside, I just gather them up and carry them back out again.
God bless.
RB
<><
A little further research and I found this: http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/br/lbeetle/#mixed. Perhaps this “Multicolored Asian Lady Beetle” is actually the “stinker” giving my beloved “Lady Bug” a bad rap.
Tamela
tipper ladybugs are my favorite critter.. lol we do get some in our home in early spring and fall.. but i dont mind.. as others have said.. they are great if you have rosebushes… as they eat the aphids..
i think they are a cheery sort of bug.. but i guess everyone has their feelings about them..
hope all are warm and healthy.. we are expecting snow again tomorrow.. will spring ever get here.. ???
big ladybug hugs
lynn
And then there are love bugs, aka the “Florida State Bird !! Another whole story.
I had a major invasion in my bedroom this year. First time it’s ever happened. They were coming in through the window a/c unit of all things. I’ve vaccumed and sprayed and still can’t get rid of the darn things. I’m still getting them out of the light fixtures. It seems they just want a warm place to hibernate. The pest company said they leave a pheremone scent behind and they will keep coming back and it lets others know to come there. And they do stink!
We are covered up with lady bug — come a sunny day and the east and south-facing windows are crawling with them. They don’t bother me — except when they fall in the food…
Tipper,
In reading Gina S.’s comment today
I realized me and my brother use to call the Doodle Bug in a little
rhyme song too. They build in dirt
a funnel or volcano shaped hole and if you say the rhyme a few times, he’ll start moving. They are flat and brownish-grey, kinda
looks like a small tick but it ain’t. It may be the sound waves
that makes him come out to see
what’s going on, but it’s more fun
to sing him out…Ken
They’re even up here in Michigan. There aren’t as many as we used to see at home, but they are here and they do seem to congregate on lighter colored areas that are on the warm side of the building.
I guess I’m the only one that likes them. We get them in the house, not like an infestation but lots of them. I set out grapes for them because I sort of like them. They never quite overwinter inside but they stay alive for awhile. I started especially liking them after hearing a story about a town that was infested with aphids so the townspeople prayed to Mary to send help. Mary sent the lady bug to eat all the aphids. From that time on they were considered to be Mary’s bugs. How can I hate a bug that’s Jesus’s mother’s favorite?
Tipper,
and Shirla…I would agree with you about the not so cute Lady Bug that is infesting homes today.
But that bug is not the bug that I remember as a child. Our Lady Bug was a shiney red with black dots, not seen flying everywhere usually seen crawling in around blooms where there is a aphid infestion on the stems also.
I never ever heard of infestions like we have here or in the cabins in the mountains when I was a child of the fourties.
I understand that this new invader is a crossbred type of vicious lady bug…not so lady like. Some will even give you a little nip on the arm. This new crossbreed is more orange in color. Not like the red cute ones of the olden days…
I sometimes wonder if some greedy person has bred these beetles to
increase their market, when the all the rage was to purchase lady bugs for their organic pesticide control in there gardens…That is why I don’t feel to bad killing the orange ones..The red ones I just love and I rarely see the red ones anymore..
Thanks Tipper,
Tipper,
Boy, do I know about those little speckled voltzwagons! Ain’t seen but a couple so far this year, but
I’ve seen thousands of ’em in the
fall. Late in the evening before the sun goes down, they swarm. I’ve vaccumed up lots, stuck ’em
in the fire, bag and all. Still,
it’s a battle, year after year.
…Ken
Hey Tipper,
Tell Don that some smart feller is gathering those bugs puttin’ in bags and sellin’ them from the backs of Spring Catalogs…That’s why they disapear in the garden.
Also, I can’t believe he stands on the rolled slick edge of a claw-foot cast iron tub, dries of then hikes to the mountains an slipy-slides on a few damp maple leaves!
What East Tennessee folks have to contend with is Stink Bugs…This is the first year we have had more than just one or two come in the house. They just fly once in a while around a light. Then bump and fly again. We’ve caught several this year. We think they come through the fireplace someway where it is not totally sealed up…A lot of folks around Knoxville say there were gazillions in their homes!
We had “lady bugs” one Fall pretty bad..not a gazillion though. Haven’t seen any this year.
Thanks Tipper,
PS…We had Crappie, hush puppies,
slaw, taters and Stawberries and cake (from Florida) for supper last night. Betterhalf caught enough (in the freezer) to have another meal! So, I guess that icy fishin’ trip yesterday was worth it to him!!
I don’t see many lady bugs here but we do have kudzu bugs by the multiple gazillions. I don’t recall a bad odor from lady bugs but these kudzu bugs sure do stink. If you pick one up to toss it outside you need to wash with strong soap to get the smell off. If you step on one it leaves a stain on the floor that is hard to remove. The farmers around here have infestations in the soy bean fields. So far they have not found an effective way to eradicate them. They are attracted to light colored surfaces. Our house is white. We try to wear dark clothing when we work outside.
Never see ’em in the house (light colored and well sunlit) and only a few outside.
I’ve only seen a very few ladybugs here, but have seen them in other homes. Once I visited a lady in a hospital here in the mountains. Her room had a few ladybugs every time I went. Did you ever play with doodle bugs? I did and thought of that little rhyme when I read your words.
Hain’t seen none here in a while. I think the colder than usual temperatures have kept all the creepy crawly buzzy slithery critters in their hiding places. Except the two ticks I found on myself a couple of weeks ago. Ticks in early March! Worries me about the coming of warmer weather.
And I thought they all lived here in my town, my house! I am fighting a losing battle with those stinky little pest. I have to clean a light fixture or vacuum at least once a day. We had a 70 degree day a couple weeks ago and the little demon bugs came out by the thousands. I hung a fly strip in the corner of a window on the screened in porch and enjoyed watching it turn brown. The church had a problem with them until the preacher found a fly spray at Tractor Supply. It does work, but I hate breathing those chemicals and cleaning up the greasy residue is almost as bad as putting up with the bug.
Why on earth does anyone think the Lady Bug is cute when they put them on jewelry, material, toys and etc?
My home sits in full sun and is light color, so far only a few have got inside and usually in the bath. House is tight so is a mystery to me how they enter.
YES! Every winter. What drives me crazy is when we’re about to have guests over & I clean out the light fixtures to clear out the ladybug cemetary so we can have better light. W/in a week at least a dozen more have climbed in there to die. My 3 year old is the only little girl I know of to be scared of ladybugs.
Ah, yes! The ladybugs do their return each year. When we return to our home in NC, we have the invasion of lady bugs. It is frustrating to rid them, but killing them is not my usual thing. I try to send them outside on their merry way. It was the wasps that we really didn’t like having in the house; I think they took up residence in our chimney. Spring must be trying to make it way into the mountains.
None here (yet) although we have never had too many any year. Shady here as well.
Once in a while we see a ladybug, but rarely. Our house is dark, with lots of water oaks around the house (South Florida, so the oaks are different with small leaves and we just had our “fall” in January & February).
No Lady Bugs here Tipper, but you know my house is a dark color and it is shady here. That may be why I don’t have them I do however have a little hard shelled black bug happening in the spring. It’s about 1/4 th the size of a lady bug. They seem to come in over the sink and last year was the first time I’ve seen them.
The house we use to live in, which is just across the woods had,, like you said “gazillions” but the west side caught a lot of sun, and around the window air conditioner there would be so many I would have to get the shop vac and suck them up, once they found a way into our bedroom and they were all in the house, that was no fun, the smell was terrible.. not so much here, the house faces the same way but with more shade.. My previous occupation was pest control,, we loved the lady bug because it would increase our pay checks,, folks calling in needing us to get rid of them, all you can really do is spray and chink the holes where they try to get in. Just when the lady bugs would disperse, it would warm up enough for the termite swarm,, cha ching…
Ladybugs have followed me along on my last three homes, and I find them quite unnerving! Yes, like you I have vacuumed a gazillion of them, but doesn’t matter as the next season they’re back again!
First house I found them at was a cabin in the woods, second a light colored house on a cleared mountain top, and here a cream colored house on semi cleared land with a woods behind us.
I’ve already seen a few on our warmer days already, but come fall is when they come in full force.
Lots of hem, but never inside
You have nailed the house type and exposure, Tipper. In addition, they like warmth, and it seems to me, humidity.
Take a place like ours here in Bryson City – an old (~123 yr) white two story frame that gets all the sun can offer. Add to it some windows with gaps around the edges that you could drive a roto-tiller through, and you’ve got a lot of uninvited polka-dotted guests – especially in a nice warm bathroom.
While I soak in the bathtub upstairs, I start marking them out on the ceiling and walls. Then when I’m done, I hop out of the tub, grab all of them I can, and throw them in the tub while the water’s a-running out. I’ve gotten more than two dozen at a time that way.
Sometimes I stand on the rim of that old cast iron tub (I wonder how many tens of thousands of baths have been taken in that thing?) to grab ahold of the ones on the highest part of the ceiling. Now if Bill Burnett was still in the law enforcement business here in Swain County, he’d likely be getting complaints about a dirty old man mooning folks out the bathroom window on Black Hill.
What I want to know is where do the sorry rascals go when it’s aphid-eating time?