Once upon a time, Berkeley Hort was active in the trade of live ladybugs, also known as lady beetles. The concept was straight forward enough. By releasing these critters in your yard, one could reduce the population of aphids while avoiding the use of toxic sprays. But folks, I have news for you.

Here is what we have found from years of research into the use of packaged lady beetles. The most popular of the many species in North America is Hippodamia convergens, The Convergent Lady Beetle; which overwinters in great masses making them easily collectible. In the western United States, adult convergent lady beetles typically spend winter months, hibernating in large aggregations in mountain valleys, far from potential food sources. In spring, the adults disperse in search of prey and suitable egg laying sites. This dispersal trait is especially strong in H. convergens.

The good folks at Cornell University put it this way. “If lady beetles are collected in this dormant state and transported for field release, even among aphid infestations, they usually migrate before feeding and laying eggs. This migratory behavior before feeding is obligatory. Releases of such “harvested” convergent lady beetles could be a waste of time, money, and beetles.”

My research has shown the following: With the best of intentions, you purchase a package of 1000 ladybugs. By the time you get it home at least 300 have perished, leaving at most 700. So now you follow the instructions telling you to release them at night, at the base of an aphid infested plant, but actually you let them out just after sundown so you and your family can watch the action. Many take to the sky in search of food or love within 10 minutes, leaving you with 200 rather sluggish ladybugs. Of these, many will eat up to 7 times their body weight in aphids each day, which is not bad until you calculate the reproductive rate of aphids. Alas, within one week you will be left with not one living ladybug. None…zero.

Insectaries are nurseries for insects, where beneficial garden bugs are raised. Yet in all of my calls to insectaries that distribute ladybugs, I found none that actually raise them. They are all “harvested” from natural winter aggregation sites, which means that they essentially go out and scoop them up. The reason? It’s cheap and easy, and people buy them.

Ultimately Berkeley Hort has chosen not to perpetuate this fallacy. A better approach is to encourage ladybugs to come to your garden naturally by providing a nesting habitat and/or not using pesticides which with would otherwise disrupt them or their food source’s ability to survive. Tolerate a few of the bad guys, and you’ll have plenty of the good ones.

– Paul