Ladybugs on the loose.

As I mentioned in a previous post we've had a lot of aphids in our garden, much worse than usual for this time of year. Rather than spraying with pesticide which will also kill the good bugs we decided to release ladybugs again. When we have tried this before it made a huge difference in the aphid population. I also think it's a great way to teach my girls about how nature works, and how there are natural predators for many of the "bad bugs" in our garden. For example Dragonflies are excellent at catching mosquitoes, certain types of wasps will eat Aphids and of course spiders trap and eat many different types of "bad" insects. Rosie at Leaves n' Bloom did an excellent post about how beneficial lacewings are in the garden too.

These Ladies in Red are the same type of ladybugs we've released before. There are 1,500 ladybugs in this bag. We kept the bag in the refrigerator for a day until the weather was more cooperative. Keeping them at a lower temperature makes them "sleep" and then they quickly wake up after taking them out.

We trimmed off a corner of the bag and the ladybugs slowly start finding their way out. We had them crawling all over our hands as we carried the bag to different parts of the garden to release them. It's important to release them later in the day after watering so they don't just all fly away.

You can see they have plenty of aphids to eat. On the package it states that adult ladybugs can eat up to 80 aphids a day. They will also eat Spider mites, thrips and white flies.

We tried to have them crawl right onto the plants, but occasionally we had to shake them out a bit.

If you held the bag to your ear you could hear them crawling around inside. There were ladybugs with no spots and ladybugs with many spots. It's a myth that the number of spots they have equal their age. The number of spots can tell an entomologist what species of ladybug they are though.

Sweet Pea rescuing one off the driveway.

The Littlest Gardener sprinkling them on her rainbow garden.

Already getting to work eating Aphids.

Also according to the package it says that an adultLadybugs lay about 1,500 eggs in her lifetime. The baby ladybug larva look nothing like a ladybug, so you need to be careful not to get rid of the them. The larva will eat about 400 insects while in that stage, which lasts about 3 weeks.

Hopefully many of the ladybugs that we released will lay eggs here in our garden so that they will continue to be our natural pest control. When I see any ladybug eggs or larva I'll be sure to share pictures, I had never known what the larva looked like before we released ladybugs.