Care and Release of Ladybugs

Ladybugs are beetles  They love to eat apids.  The release should be made in the evening, just before dark. Ladybugs will not fly in the dark, or at least most of them won't. On warm to hot nights I have found it best to cool the bugs off with about 30 minutes in the refrigerator. This really slows them down and makes controlling them a lot easier, but only for a few minutes. With a minimum amount of a food supply, the ladybugs will stick around and lay eggs for the remainder of the season. Ladybugs must have a supply of Aphids and access to plant pollen for them to lay eggs that are fertile, a lot of Aphids will result in a lot of eggs. I have found that some ladybugs will settle right into their new enviroment and will stay the whole season while others will be there one day and the next they are gone. I have found that there are some types of enviroments they prefer over others but one thing they seem to thrive on is access to a sunny location that doesn't get too hot that they can gather on and sun themselves. While you are waiting for the sun to go down, lightly water the release area, this will cool everything down and give the bugs water to drink. So, you wait until it is almost dark, get the bugs out of the refrigerator and open the container. . Next morning, they may be hard to find but most of them should be there. When they are spread out it doesn't look like there are many bugs, but keep looking and you will eventually get your eyes tuned into seeing them. Now, leave them alone for a few days. Check on them in a few days and see how they are doing, they should have eliminated a lot of aphids or whatever the pest of the week is. Looking around, you should see two or three ladybugs every one to two square feet, maybe a few clusters of the pests with ladybugs eyeballing them for their next meal and an occassional solitary pest here and there. If you don't see any pests, there were too many ladybugs, if you don't see any pests or ladybugs, there were way too many ladybugs, if you see a lot of pests but no ladybugs there were not enough ladybugs or maybe too many pests.    if you would like to keep a couple in your container for a week or so, feed them raisens that have been soaked in water and chopped.