Ladybugs - Natural pest control

Ladybug eating an Aphid

Beneficial garden ladybugs for controlling pests in your garden are the most popular and widely used beneficial insects for commercial and home use. Ladybugs are capable of consuming up to 50 to 60 aphids per day but will also eat a variety of other insects and larvae including scales, mealy bugs, leaf hoppers, mites, and various types of soft-bodied insects. Ladybugs, also called lady beetles or ladybird beetles, are a very beneficial group of insects. Ladybugs are natural enemies of many insect pests and it has been demonstrated that a single ladybug may consume as many as 5,000 aphids in its lifetime. Ladybug adults have a very characteristic convex, hemispherical to oval body shape. The head is covered by a hood called the pronotum. Many species of Ladybugs are present in North America and they are common in most habitats across the commonwealth. They may be white, yellow, pink, orange, red or black, and usually have spots.

Ladybugs are among the most familiar beetles, easily recognized by their round, often spotted bodies, less than 1/16-3/8" long. Most are shiny red, orange, or yellow with black markings, or black with red or yellow markings. Both adults and larvae are predators, mostly of aphids. They are common on plants and often over-winter as adults in large swarms under fallen leaves or bark. In the West huge swarms of Ladybugs fly into mountain canyons, over-winter under leaves, and return to the valley in the spring. If food supply is good there are many generations a year.In fact, this is a type of warning coloration to other animals that may try to eat lady beetles. Like many of other brightly-colored insects, ladybugs are distasteful to predators. When disturbed, they may secrete an odorous, distasteful fluid out of their joints to discourage enemies. Did you ever see a little red and black beetle crawling along your window sill? It was probably a Lady beetle or just Ladybug as most people call them. Most species of Ladybugs are among our most beneficial insects as they consume huge numbers of plant feeding pest insects, mostly aphids. This fact and their attractive appearance have contributed to the generally good opinion of Ladybugs by most people. For instance, the French call the Ladybugs les betes du bon Dieu or creatures of the good God. Ladybugs belong to the beetle family Coccinellidae which means "Little sphere". There are probably 4,000 species found world-wide and over 350 in North America.

Life Cycle and Habits

The length of the life cycle varies depending upon temperature, humidity, and food supply. Usually the life cycle from egg to adult requires about three to four weeks, or up to six weeks during cooler spring months. In the spring, overwintering adults find food, then lay from fifty to three hundred eggs in her lifetime (tiny, light -yellow eggs are deposited in clusters of 10 to 50 each) in aphid colonies. Eggs hatch in three to five days, and larvae feed on aphids or other insects for two to three weeks, then pupate. Adults emerge in seven to ten days. There may be five to six generations per year. In the autumn, adults hibernate, sometimes in large numbers, in plant refuse and crevices.

Amount of Food Consumed

Lady beetles, both adults and larvae, are known primarily as predators of aphids (plant lice), but they prey also on many other pests such as soft-scale insects, mealybugs, spider mites and eggs of the Colorado Potato Beetle and European Corn Borer. A few feed on plant and pollen mildews. One larva will eat about 400 medium-size aphids during its development to the pupal stage. An adult will eat about 300 medium-size aphids before it lays eggs. About three to ten aphids are eaten for each egg the beetle lays. More than 5,000 aphids may be eaten by a single adult in its lifetime. The lady beetle's huge appetite and reproductive capacity often allow it to rapidly clean out its prey.

They will feed on other pests, but are best known to eliminate the aphid population, and are one of the most active predators, searching from dawn to dusk for food.

Ladybug larva eating an Aphid

Eggs are football-shaped and orange in color and laid in circular clusters of 3-20 on the underside of leaves. Each female can lay 10-50 eggs daily. The larvae consume up to 400 aphids at a rate of 50-60 aphids a day in later stages. If food supplies are short they will cannibalize each other. Larvae live for three weeks before pupating.

After 2-5 days adults emerge and continue to feed. Adults will consume over 5,000 aphids each. Pollen and nectar are necessary for maturation of newly emerged lady bug adults, particularly before a winter hibernation season. Adults can survive on pollen and nectar for limited periods, but a supply of aphids or other prey is necessary for egg production.

Pests Attacked

Most lady beetles found on crops and in gardens are aphid predators. Some species prefer only certain aphid species while others will attack many aphid species on a variety of crops. Some prefer mite or scale species. If aphids are scarce, lady beetle adults and larvae may feed on the eggs of moths and beetles, and mites, thrips, and other small insects, as well as pollen and nectar. They may also be cannibalistic. Because of their ability to survive on other prey when aphids are in short supply, lady beetles are particularly valuable natural enemies.

Life Cycle

Within a year, there can be as many as 5-6 generations of ladybugs as the average time from egg to adult only takes about 3-4 weeks. In the spring, adults find food and then the females lay anywhere from 50-300 eggs. The tiny eggs are yellow & oval shaped and are usually found in clusters of 10-50, near aphid colonies. The eggs take 3-5 days to hatch and the larvae voraciously feed on aphids for 2-3 weeks before they pupate into adults.

In the fall, adults hibernate in plant refuse and crevices. They often do this in mass where several hundred adults will gather at the base of a tree, along a fence row or under a rock. They especially like areas where leaves protect them from cold winter temperatures. Like all beetles, the lady beetles have a complete metamorphosis with distinct egg, larval, pupal, and adult stages. Adults of one common species, the Convergent Lady Beetle (Hippodamia convergens), spend the winter in protected hiding places such as logs, buiIdings, ground covering vegetation, and the like, where many hundreds of individuals may cluster together. With the onset of spring the adults leave their winter homes and fly to fields and yards where mating takes place. The females deposit the eggs in clusters of up to a dozen per mass. The larvae hatch from the eggs in about a week and immediately start to consume aphids or other appropriate food. In a little less than a month they pupate and the pupal period lasts only about one week. When the adults emerge they too feed on aphids, but as fall approaches they may eat some pollen which supplies fat for winter hibernation.

Affix the ladybug house to a short pole in the garden, preferably about a foot or two off the ground.
Nectar attracts ladybugs, so placing a small piece of sponge that has been soaked in sugar water inside the ladybug house. A water source and a little food, either some aphids or sweet alyssum, will help keep the ladybugs comfortable.


Attracting Ladybugs in the Garden

Apart from aphids, ladybugs also require a source of pollen for food and are attracted to specific types of plants. The most popular ones have umbrella shaped flowers such as fennel, dill, cilantro, caraway, angelica, tansy, wild carrot & yarrow. Other plants that also attract ladybugs include cosmos (especially the white ones), coreopsis, and scented geraniums, dandelions.

Apart from planting attractive plants in the garden, you can also promote ladybug populations by elimination of spraying insecticides. Not only are ladybugs sensitive to most synthetic insecticides, but if the majority of their food source is gone, they won't lay their eggs in your garden. As difficult as it may be, allowing aphids to live on certain plants is necessary to ensure that there is enough food for ladybugs. In addition, resist the urge to squish bugs & eggs in the garden, unless you're certain that they are not beneficial. Source

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