This is one of the ladybugs I found around the house yesterday. I threw it in my closet with the hps light and the next morning it laying belly up on the floor. It was still alive so I put it in a drop of water , then I put it on one of my plants under the t5's and it is back to life and happy. Anybody know any reason why it did not like the hps .

To freaken hot when he went toward the light. They go towards the light,,and that HPS will burn his butt up. No wounder she was thirsty.

That makes sense Weedhopper.

bug store always suggests to spray your plants lightly with the garden hose before applying them
*this is OD regular gardening advice obviously, but from that i'd assume they like to get their drink on.

she'll likely die shortly anyway (which is good, means you don't have a food source )

In fall when it gets cold I get hundreds of ladybugs crawling on my porch wall facing the sun. I had a piece of weather strippiing missing around the door, walked in one morning and the walls and ceiling were covered with ladybugs. I sucked them up with a vacuum and let them go outside. Anyone know of a way to store them for use later?

What is the most valuable to the organic grower is the ladybug larva. Now that is special. Looks like a little baby alligator. They eat aphids ferociously. I usually do a happy dance when i see the larva in early summer.

http://www.ipm.iastate.edu/ipm/iiin/ladybeetles.html

Here is the cutie pies....

woops... can't delete my own mistake...hmmm

WOW, that thing is ugly. That is good , it will scare the mites away.

They eat a thousand times more then the ladybug. They would be great if you had a lot of the larva for mites.

I remember hearing over at the Passion, that they can be a problem with Buds on a Flowering plant. That the Larva can get into the buds or something. Is that true?

I bought a bunch of ladybugs once when I first started growing indoors to try and combat mites. The ladybugs did nothing to eradicate the mites and...yes WH, I found dead ladybugs (just ladybugs, not the larva) inside a bunch of the big buds. It was just gross. They don't work on mites (the only pest problem I seem to get) so I have never purchased them since. I read later that ladybugs preferred food is NOT mites and they only eat them to keep from starving. Somehow this made me rather sad. I love ladybugs and don't want to put them in an environment where they are forced to eat something they usually don't dine on. And so many of them died because of the heat of the light. The larva may be different, but ladybugs do not work to eliminate mites.

Thanks THG,,I thought i had read something like that . And i also read that lady bugs are best known for eating Aphids,,thats what they like.

Here is a very good read.
http://www.naturescontrol.com/mite.html

you're not confusing ladybug larvae with moth larvae are you WH?
that's the one with larvae that do a tonne of damage (they lay their eggs on developing buds, then the worm hatches and eats and craps all within your bud rotting much)
they suck.

ladybugs, just carcass problems is all i ever heard (much like THG's description )

No,,i was going by what THG had explained about what happened to her. I have no knowledge personally.

I don't have any mites that I know of,I thought he might be happier crawling around the plants instead of the walls in my kitchen but sadly he only lasted a couple of days. The next one I see I will leave alone as long as he stays out of my coffee whitener.

Except that pic is not a "real" ladybug, it's an asian ladybug beetle , many people mistake them for our red/black lady bugs. They are actually an invasive species introduced in my area for the feeding of wild turkey to increase hunting.

These types of "ladybug" do not eat mites, but they're more than happy to let them hitch a ride and carry them all over your plants. They also burrow down in your grow medium to lay their eggs. If you use oasis grow wedges for rooting, they like to attach themselves to those wedges and suck them dry of water.

I know this because I've been dealing with an infestation of them in my veg room for almost 2 months now, at the same time I've battled the worst mite infestation I've ever had. They're gross when you smash them, really stinky, so I go around every day and pull them off my plants and toss them in a bucket of water to drown, as they can't handle puddles/pools of water at all and die pretty quick.

And, Rosebud is correct, if you want to fight critters with ladybugs, larvae are the choice. They do nothing but eat, when they turn into adults they eat only a fraction of the mites.

This is an Asian Lady Bug Mel.


http://www.epestsupply.com/asian_beetles.php#.Uvj1mWJdUYQ

Quote: Many people are fond of ladybugs because of their colorful, spotted appearance. But farmers love them for their appetite. Most ladybugs voraciously consume plant-eating insects, such as aphids, and in doing so they help to protect crops. Ladybugs lay hundreds of eggs in the colonies of aphids and other plant-eating pests. When they hatch, the ladybug larvae immediately begin to feed.

Ladybugs are also called lady beetles or, in Europe, ladybird beetles. There are about 5,000 different species of these insects, and not all of them have the same appetites. A few ladybugs prey not on plant-eaters but on plants. The Mexican bean beetle and the squash beetle are destructive pests that prey upon the crops mentioned in their names.

Ladybugs appear as half-spheres, tiny, spotted, round or oval-shaped domes. They have short legs and antennae.

Their distinctive spots and attractive colors are meant to make them unappealing to predators. Ladybugs can secrete a fluid from joints in their legs which gives them a foul taste. Their coloring is likely a reminder to any animals that have tried to eat their kind before: "I taste awful." A threatened ladybug may both play dead and secrete the unappetizing substance to protect itself.

Life Cycle

http://www.ladybug-life-cycle.com/#Cycle

The ladybugs are getting a lot of attention this morning, Pictureshttp://www.ladybuglady.com/ladybugweb9.htm

Ladybug porn. LOL

@WeedHopper and that's what's in the first pic of the post. I've been dealing with them for a while now, you don't want them in the grow, I promise. Real ladybugs yes, but not these asian ones.