Ladybugs

I’ve raised many different things when I had a farmette. cows, pigs, chickens, turkeys, and honey bees, from a swarm, but nothing brought more joy then when I purchased Ladybugs, because they scoot around seemingly without a care in the world. The benefit of having Ladybugs cuts down on pesticide usage in the garden bed because they devour aphids and other pests to keep your garden perking along. I never knew that Ladybugs came in different colors but they do and range from yellow to orange to red and some are even totally black. A Ladybug can devour as many as five thousand aphids in their lifetime which generally is up to three years. The male is smaller then the female and they often lose their black dots on their wings when they age and can flap their wings up to 85 times a second, mimicking hummingbirds. Females can lay up to 300 eggs at a time and hatch within 5 days and take up to three weeks to become adults. The flowers that will attract Ladybugs to your garden bed many are mix of weeds, annuals, and vegetables that range from dill, cilantro, wild carrot, dandelions, cosmos, and geraniums. If you have extensive garden beds it might be worth it to buy some Ladybugs, but be careful, they cannot be raised indoors and released to the out of doors. Make certain you get instructions on how to prepare them for your garden beds. Here is one source that I found: http://www.suburbanhabitat.com/beneficial_insects.php