Pam and I have a nice house. It\u2019s one of those old farmhouses that\u2019s been remodeled a
\nhundred different ways. Since the kids left, it\u2019s just Pam and me. And a few thousands
\nof ladybugs.<\/p>\n
Several times a day, I go around the house sweeping ladybugs into a dustpan and
\ntossing them outside. Depending on the time of day, they gather around different
\nwindows.<\/p>\n
The siege of ladybugs is worse in the country. Townie friends report that some of the
\nlittle buggers make it to the big city. If you don\u2019t have them, be thankful for avoiding this
\npestilence.<\/p>\n
In the fall, they are obviously coming inside our home. They overwinter in the cracks
\nand crevices of our house. The cracks and crevices are like Phoenix for a ladybug.<\/p>\n
This time of year, I assume they\u2019re trying to get outside. But they don\u2019t seem to take a
\ndirect route. Sometimes, I can\u2019t tell what they\u2019re doing. I\u2019ve seen them walking in circles
\nlike I do when I can\u2019t find my phone.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m sure they have their reasons for what they do. But let\u2019s be honest. How big can the
\nbrain of a ladybug be?<\/p>\n
I know that some of you are saying, \u201cThose aren\u2019t ladybugs. Those are Asian lady
\nbeetles.\u201d I\u2019ve heard that a thousand times. Excuse me while I get something off my
\nchest. OF COURSE THEY\u201dRE LADYBUGS!<\/p>\n
\u201cLadybug,\u201d like cricket and grasshopper, is a general category of insect. There are 5,000
\ndifferent species of ladybugs in the world. The scientific name of that family is
\nCoccinellidae. We could call them Coccinelady bugs.<\/p>\n
The one crawling on the window next to me is darn sure a ladybug. It\u2019s not a native
\nladybug. I remember finding ladybugs in the grove when I was young. I thought they
\nwere cute. Cute as a bug in a rug.<\/p>\n
Now that we have bugs in the rug and the curtains everywhere else, they are no longer
\ncute. These of course are an invasive ladybug.<\/p>\n
I found this from the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation. (And who doesn\u2019t
\nbelieve in invertebrate conservation?)<\/p>\n
\u201cOf the 500 or so ladybug species in the United States, nearly 200 are exotic species
\nimported and released as pest control agents.\u201d It seems our current plague stems from
\na USDA release to attack tree pests in the South.<\/p>\n
Around here, their explosion in numbers coincided with soybean aphids arriving. Aphids
\nlove sucking on our eighty-six million acres of soybeans. The lady beetles love
\nchomping on the aphids.<\/p>\n
Aphids followed by a few decades soybeans taking over half the Corn Belt. Soybeans,
\nsoybean aphids, and these ladybugs are all transplants for the Asian continent.<\/p>\n
To round the invasive circle, aphids overwinter on buckthorn shrubs that fill the edges of
\ngroves. Originally, buckthorn was imported as a fast-growing windbreak species. Now
\nbuckthorns are a curse.<\/p>\n
Do you detect a pattern here? Human beings making short-term decisions with long-
\nterm consequences?<\/p>\n
Someone looking at our planet from a distance might observe that human beings are
\nthe most persistently invasive species on Earth. Humans have crawled into every crack
\nand crevice of the globe.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a tremendous success story for mankind. Unfortunately, we do not tread lightly on
\nthe planet. Correcting and lessening environmental impacts is an ongoing task for each
\ngeneration. If you are young, the damage you are dealing with belongs to previous
\ngenerations. Thanks Grandpa.<\/p>\n
Back to our ladybugs. It\u2019s not a plague of biblical proportions, but it\u2019s close. Moses
\nbrought news of ten plagues to the Pharoah. They included frogs, gnats, flies, and
\nlocusts. Ladybugs fall somewhere between gnats and flies. That begs the question, if
\nwe all repent, will they go away?<\/p>\n
Until then, what to do with the little buggers? We all swat flies and slap mosquitoes.
\nUnfortunately, if you employ a similar strategy on these ladybugs, you will regret it. If
\nyou squish them like a bug, they stink like a skunk.<\/p>\n
Some people have the foundations of their homes sprayed with ladybugicide with
\nvarying degrees of success. But if you are trying to reduce your exposure to chemicals,
\nthis may not be the best route.<\/p>\n
Speaking of chemicals, I was talking to a friend about how our moms were all part-time
\nchemical applicators. Every kitchen back then had a spray can of Raid sitting on the
\ncounter. During fly season, moms would spray a fog of Raid about the kitchen as a
\npreventative measure. That might explain some of the strange behavior by us Boomers.<\/p>\n
Once the ladybug has entered your home, what is to be done? I have this dilemma. I
\ndon\u2019t like killing things. That has limited my hunting career. I did butcher chickens. But I
\nfelt bad for the soon-to-be-headless bird as I readied the hatchet.<\/p>\n
Many people vacuum up the little beasts. That is Pam\u2019s preferred bug removal plan. I
\nfind myself imagining the poor creatures trapped in a bag, thrashing about. It is the kind
\nof thing bug pacifists think about.<\/p>\n
Hence, my sweeping them up and throwing them outside. Pam wonders whether they
\ndon\u2019t immediately find a way back into our home.<\/p>\n
I had a dilemma as fall turned to winter, and freezing temperatures arrived. If I threw
\nthem out in the cold, was I subjecting them to a horribler death?<\/p>\n
Thankfully, I have a friend who is an animal ethicist. Karen worked in a vet\u2019s office.
\nWhen the kids were younger and we had a menagerie of critters on the farm, Karen and
\nI often discussed how best to deal with an injured bunny or an aging cat.<\/p>\n
Karen also sweeps up and throws her ladybugs outside. Even on a wintry night, she
\nholds out the possibility that the liberated ladybug can find lifesaving shelter under some
\nbrush. It is the kind of moral puzzle that animal ethicists deal with.<\/p>\n
We thought about notifying ICE. The Insect Control and Enforcement agency could
\nhave come in to deport the unwelcome visitors. But Pam wasn\u2019t too keen on dozens of
\nmasked agents blanketing our house and cruelly wrestling the ladybugs to the ground
\nbefore sending them off to detainment facilities.<\/p>\n
Maybe I\u2019ll just repent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Pam and I have a nice house. It\u2019s one of those old farmhouses that\u2019s been remodeled a hundred different ways. Since the kids left, it\u2019s just Pam and me. And a few thousands of ladybugs. Several times a day, I go around the house sweeping ladybugs into a dustpan and tossing them outside. Depending on …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":143320,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[162],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-146085","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-weeds-by-randy-krzmarzick"],"aioseo_notices":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-11 19:21:34","action":"change-status","newStatus":"trash","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146085","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146085"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146085\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":146087,"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146085\/revisions\/146087"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/143320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}