Do you "save" ladybugs?

For some reason, they congregate in my upstairs bathroom over the winter. I know they are a nuisance, but they are cute little buggers! If I see one struggling to flip itself over, I always give it a little boost. I never kill them. (BAD LUCK!!)

If they die a natural death, I just clean them up with a vacuum cleaner.

I know, they are Asian invaders, not native ladybugs, but they are so cute toodling along like they have somewhere to go. I hope some of them make it until spring.

Those Asian lady beetles like to drink a little sweet coffee while they're in your house. My mom's house gets absolutely full of them, and aside from vacuuming up the ones who don't make it, she leaves them be, feeds them when they wake up, and is glad they patrol the garden all summer.

I've heard they like marshmallows, too.

Tucker

Funny, we don't have them in the kitchen, just in that one bathroom. I actually have some plants that I brought in last fall that are now infested with yummy aphids, and the ladybugs aren't interested in them!

I'm not putting coffee out for them, though. Gotta draw the line somewhere. :hi:

They prefer tree-dwelling aphids from what I read. :hi:

Tucker

:)

save silverfish though. You have to draw a line somewhere.

instead I just let the dog eat them.

Alley goes me one further and talks to them while doing it. I did not know they are not indigenous.

Last I heard, native ladybugs prefer to eat aphids on lower-growing plants, while the Asian variety prefers tree aphids, so they're not actually competing.

Tucker

Our old Malamute-Australian shepherd-Blue Heeler, 'Billie-girl' did not seem to understand why I was saying "Come on, get down from there!", as I stood on a counter or step-ladder trying to cover a little creature with a jar so I could capture it to put it outside. She would bark excitedly. So, if my husband was away, and I heard a noise outside in the middle of the night, I knew I could look up at the ceiling or high on the wall and say "Get down from there!" and Billie would bark, and let a (imagined or not) prowler know a big dog was in this house. :)

It had gotten in my jacket or something before I got in the car and then while I was on the highway it decided to fly around my head and almost made me fly off the over pass.


LADY BUGS ARE ASSHOLES

I had one fly in my ear! Scared the daylights out of me. I did not try to save that one! Dumbass ladybug.

Bitey cute things are funny!

Tucker

I have no idea how it wound up in my car, but there it was.

These?

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Ij-fQik9bsI/SiVtwN-_gCI/AAAAAAAAAaE/R2bU8N9gmMY/s320/Lilly+beetle1.jpg

They are the bane of my existence. They eat my Asiatic Lilies!

I have to go out every day, twice a day during the Spring and Summer to crush them by the dozen with my fingers.

If you mean real ladybugs, like these:



Then never mind, I love them.

PS: I also love spiders.

I read that the ones that get in the house are Asian ladybugs, not the native ones. They used to be sold by garden supply places and have become pests.

I don't know what happens to the native ladybugs. Hopefully they co-exist.

They bite and I don't think they do a lot of good for the garden like native LBs do.

He was in the bathroom. I put him outside.

I'll kill him later. :P

Sun May-22-05 07:33 PM

Today I went for a walk in the neighborhood, as I try to do as often as I can, and I saw an earthworm baking on the pavement; sun burnt, covered in sand, but still alive. I walked ten paces past it and could not go any further. I had to go back,pick it up, and put it back in the wet grass. I don't know if it will make it, but at least I know that I tried to help another living being today.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=105&topic_id=3306967&mesg_id=3307634

Save earthworms, lady bugs, frogs.... Last summer I saw a baby garter snake, picked it up and showed it to my granddaughter. She is a city child, and whenever she sees anything "creepy-crawly", she stomps on it. During that same visit, having a lady bug meander across her hand and finding out that it wasn't disgusting was a revelation to her. There is hope!

probably because of Eric Carle's Grouchy Ladybug.

I have a ladybug house in my garden. as someone else said, they eat aphids.

and, Tom Waits quoted that old nursery rhyme about the ladybug... fly away home, your house is on fire and your children all gone... what a happy one, huh?

ladybugs will defeat the cockroaches when they are the last two species left!

Also will pick up worms from the driveway after a rain and put them back on the lawn before the sun cooks them. It was also a daily ritual for me to rescue bugs from the pool in the backyard.

It's a quirk I have.

:pals:

and every fall a swarm would show up and coat the side of our house for a few days. Inevitably a few would find their way in through the upstairs bathroom vent (we were high on a hill and had an atrium bathroom so they could have done worse). I'd always escort as many as possible outside but there were always a few who tried to winter over, not very successfully, but I couldn't bring myself to throw them out into the cold.

And they're not really 'invaders'. We brought them here in our infinite wisdom.

Hi,
Yeah, I catch any bugs I can that get inside and let them out to fend for themselves outside. I do find it odd that in a lot of people their first response is to step on and crush the poor bug. What on earth did that bug do to you? Only ones I seem to kill are mosquitoes that are in the process of biting me and maybe infecting me with West Nile, is that hypocritical?

Peace

Hell, I'm in SC and in the summer we get Palmetto Bugs (yeah, they are big ugly roaches, but many of us call the Palmetto Bugs). I'm as repulsed by them as anyone, but when I see one that has somehow found a way into my house (and they do find a way) I usually wait until they are on the floor somewhat in the open and then put a plastic cup over them, slide a very thin piece of cardboard underneath, gently so that I don't hurt them, and then walk them outside to set them free, sqirming the whole time (me, not the bug).

I've had some success at putting moths outside the same way, except catching them on walls rather than floors.

Spiders too.

Wasps, ants - well, it's kinda hard to help those creatures out, but they aren't staying in...

i try to save or protect them when i can...

off the sidewalk, back into the bushes. Snails are suicidal at night!

I never knew that, until one got Biker13!

But I still save them, and put them in the garden.

Worms? Well, we have a land turtle, named Gunnar that Biker13 has had for 28 years. All worms collected are his! Food chain and all...

Spiders? They scare the hell out of me! Biker13 deals with them for me. He puts them outside. If I see them,and I'm alone, I stomp them!

Biker's Old Lady

I just can't do likewise with spiders when they engage me in combat. If they are going along on their way and our paths won't cross, I do let them by, but if we are headed in the same direction, well, I hate to say it, but it's them or me.

Bees, now, I'll save a bee any day. Last summer I would see the rare one out in the garden, usually twitching on the ground, and I always made a point of righting them and trying to place them somewhere benign. I feel bad for them, and I'll do whatever I can to give them a hand up.

a sandwich? :P

Ladybird, ladybird fly away home...