There is a fence on my commute into work that always, one morning in spring, teems with ladybirds.
Well, OK, teeming is maybe an exaggeration, but there are enough to notice and it's one of my real spring-is-here moments. My guess is that the soft wood provides a perfect sheltered hibernation space, and that a few sunny mornings and frost-free nights warms the wood enough to wake them up.
This year, for the first time, I had the idea of bringing some of this population back to mine, to keep the blackfly on the broad beans and the aphid farms on the apple tree to an acceptable level. In previous years I've bought in larvae - Green Gardener are happy to fix you up with bugs of all kinds by post - but the larvae are shipped young and small and a bit nobblable by ants.
But as these ideas often do, it came to nothing - I didn't have enough aphids yet to justify a kidnapping, the Ladybirds dispersed too fast, I didn't fancy the faff of catching adults who are a bit feisty and inclined to hostile urination attacks. But then, a few weeks later, the fence (and the walls in the surrounding gardens) were busy instead with ladybird larvae:
And not little ones either - big savage looking beasties halfway to ladybird, and here was me with my apple tree's leaves now curling over under the weight of the ant-farmed mid-greyfly. So when the fence was still busy in the evening I deployed my cutting jar and home they came.
Several months on, there are still aphid farms on the tree. But only one or two - overall I'm pleased.
Well, OK, teeming is maybe an exaggeration, but there are enough to notice and it's one of my real spring-is-here moments. My guess is that the soft wood provides a perfect sheltered hibernation space, and that a few sunny mornings and frost-free nights warms the wood enough to wake them up.
This year, for the first time, I had the idea of bringing some of this population back to mine, to keep the blackfly on the broad beans and the aphid farms on the apple tree to an acceptable level. In previous years I've bought in larvae - Green Gardener are happy to fix you up with bugs of all kinds by post - but the larvae are shipped young and small and a bit nobblable by ants.
But as these ideas often do, it came to nothing - I didn't have enough aphids yet to justify a kidnapping, the Ladybirds dispersed too fast, I didn't fancy the faff of catching adults who are a bit feisty and inclined to hostile urination attacks. But then, a few weeks later, the fence (and the walls in the surrounding gardens) were busy instead with ladybird larvae:
And not little ones either - big savage looking beasties halfway to ladybird, and here was me with my apple tree's leaves now curling over under the weight of the ant-farmed mid-greyfly. So when the fence was still busy in the evening I deployed my cutting jar and home they came.
Several months on, there are still aphid farms on the tree. But only one or two - overall I'm pleased.
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