Re: Lady bugs, lady beetles...gone

**H*@aol.com**

Late every fall we've had to deal with an inundation of lady  beetles 
(Asiatic) on the south face of a number of buildings.  As soon as  it would get 
cold they would congregate by the thousands and seek every possible  crack 
and crevice to enter the structure and seek over- wintering  sites.  It was 
easy enough to simply vacuum them up once they got  in and problem solved.  
The invasions were very  predictable.

In the spring as soon as the south faces of the same buildings  would warm 
up the beetles would re-emerge en mass and again be found all over  the 
inside of the buildings.  For some reason they are better at getting in  then 
getting out.

In one instance they got into a small six by six foot folly  that was once 
a swimming pool changing room and there must have been tens of  thousands of 
them in this tiny space setting up for winter.

Last fall I counted less than ten beetles at the three  sites.  From tens 
of thousands to ten. When I spoke with my entomology  contacts at Cornell 
they said they'd seen a gradual decline over the years but  they weren't 
alarmed at my observation.

This spring, when I would have expected to see another swarm  on both the 
inside and outside of the same buildings...not a single  one.

I again noted this to my bug buddies...again no sign of  concern.

Did they get wiped out in last summer's record breaking heat  and drought?  
No one seems to know.

My question is how localized is this?  My observations  are from northern 
Westchester in NY.  Upstate in the Catskills I've seen  the usually number of 
lady beetles stalking aphids on the shrub hibiscus so  apparently they are 
not affected there.

Has anyone else noted a collapse of lady bug/ lady beetle  populations or 
is it just limited to this one area in Westchester?

Andrew Messinger
The Hampton Gardener is a  registered trade mark and is published every 
Thursday in The Southampton Press,  The Press and the Easthampton Press 

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