Content
Part 1 Finding the ladybug
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Find a ladybug.
Look where ladybugs usually hide: under the leaves of aphid-infested plants (look at roses and other flowers, or flowering fruit trees). Also, ladybugs like to hide in crevices that can be found on buildings, for example, in window frames.
- Ladybugs love aphids as their main food source.
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Take the ladybug. Catch the ladybug with a butterfly net or with your hands, just don't let it fly away. Cover it with your other palm, but do not crush it. Carefully place the ladybug in the jar, you can already start taking care of it.
Part 2 Home improvement for the ladybug
-
Use a large enough plastic container for the ladybug.
The size of the container should be large enough for small flights and for a night's sleep. Add twigs, leaves and petals to it for a change (any leaves and flowers must be changed daily to prevent rotting). Provide the ladybug with a place to hide, such as a hollow stick or a small toy with holes in it
- You can also use an insectarium.
- Glass jars are not recommended as they overheat quickly and can burn the ladybug, especially when placed in direct sunlight.
-
If keeping the ladybug for more than 24 hours, use a hermit crab container. They will not be able to get out of it, but at the same time they will be comfortable. Add fresh herbs daily. You also need to feed the insect daily.
Part 3 Ladybug care
-
Provide food for the ladybug.
Feed her a little honey or sugar. Place food in a small bottle cap.
- You can also feed the ladybug with raisins or lettuce.
-
Pour into a plastic bottle cap with water. There should be very little water so that the ladybug does not drown.
-
Feed the ladybug twice a day. You shouldn't give her too much food, just a little bit is needed.
-
Be careful when handling the ladybug.
This should be done as follows:
- Place your finger next to the ladybug. He should touch the surface on which she sits.
- Wait for the ladybug to crawl or fly onto your finger.
- Now you have it on your hand, but be careful!
-
Consider releasing the ladybug in 24 hours. You've had enough time to become familiar with her habits, return her to her usual duties of saving your garden from pests.
Tips
- Where ladybugs are found, small black bugs can be young ladybugs.
- The ladybug container should have openings or slots for fresh air.
- Ladybugs are easy to find during the warm season from spring to autumn.
- If you have no sugar, try crushing the candy.
Warnings
- Renew the leaves frequently. Failure to do this can create mold that will kill the ladybug.
- Do not try to pick up the ladybug with your fingers, as you may crush it.
- Be careful, any wild living creature can be a source of disease. To minimize the risk, always wash your hands after handling the ladybug.
What do you need
- Sugar, aphids or honey
- Leaves
- Container
- Bottle caps
- ladybug
- Grass
- Stones
- Sticks
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Each of us, since childhood, is familiar with these small, cute bugs, whose red body is decorated with funny black dots. It turns out that these harmless creatures are capable of destroying whole hordes of dangerous pests of the garden and garden, which cause a lot of trouble to man. Aphids are well known to gardeners and gardeners, as well as what the neighborhood with it can lead to. But, having settled on your site, for example, ladybirds, you can not be afraid for your harvest, aphids will not harm him.
Of course, it will be very difficult for one insect to cope with such a task, which means you need to seek help from those who are engaged in growing a large number of insects. And, try to get a large batch from them.
The idea of building your own business on raising ladybugs seems tempting to many. Today we will talk with you about what you need to know and do in order for this activity to be not only enjoyable, but also profitable.
Where to begin?
Before embarking on the implementation of plans, you need to consider many factors and think carefully about everything. Including such a question - what to do with the products? Ladybugs, in large numbers, can be sold to greenhouse farmers, gardeners, agronomists, who will send them to the fields. You can sell red bugs via the Internet, those who want to purchase such a product will not keep themselves waiting long. Thus, it is possible to sell both harvested and grown bugs.
How do you calculate the volume of a product? Insects are counted not by quantity, but by weight, since they are mobile, and this is not easy to do. In our country, one ladybug costs from one ruble.
Undoubtedly, in order for the cultivation of any living creatures to be successful, which means a profitable occupation, knowledge is needed. It is necessary to collect as much information as possible about the behavior and reproduction of insects, but we will talk about this a little later.
Where to find insects?
Do you want to acquire ladybirds? There is a lot of time for this - from early spring to the end of summer, insects are active and lead their usual way of life. Most often they are collected by a mechanical method. To do this, they go to the edge of the forest, in the field, or in a ravine. But how to consider small insects in a motley, multi-colored palette of the plant world? It turns out there are plants that attract ladybugs. Therefore, it is worth taking a closer look at tansy, yarrow, daisies, dill and other representatives of the Compositae family. If you have not come across these plants, go to a buckwheat field, or a field sown with oats.
Meet the ladybug
The ladybug is a classic example of an insect with a complete transformation cycle. That is, using her example, we can see how a larva appears from an egg, then a pupa, and then an adult. Each stage of development is interesting in its own way, let's watch this process and we.
Gardeners need to know what the eggs of a ladybug look like so as not to confuse them with the manifestation of a disease or eggs of dangerous pests and not to destroy them. As we have already said, the ladybug is a useful insect, so it must be protected, not destroyed.
In due time, larvae appear from the eggs. They are so small that it is rather difficult to see them with the naked eye. Egg larvae appear on the third day, each not more than a millimeter long, and already on the second day of life, the first molt awaits them. The emerging insect is large, and its color resembles that of an adult.
The larvae are mobile throughout the day, they fuss and constantly look for food, but the mother did everything to ensure that these searches were crowned with success. After all, the eggs were laid where there are aphid colonies. On the third day, a second molt occurs, and their length becomes 5 mm.
Under natural conditions, most of the larvae die, because they have no wings, and it is very difficult for them to escape from enemies. The larva looks strange, and only after carefully examining it, one can guess that this is a future ladybug. Therefore, amateurs gardeners often destroy the larvae, believing that these are pests. Having existed for a week, the larvae, after the next molt, grow even more, and their length is already approaching 1.5 cm. After this, pupation begins on the stem of the plant.
In nature, these processes occur more slowly, because the larvae have much less food than at home. The emerging visas of the beetle pupa vaguely resembles a beautiful ladybird, its color is not the same.
Some people mistakenly believe that one dot appears on the back of an insect every year, all seven dots appear immediately after birth.
The main task of a newborn insect is to dry its wings, so it spreads them and folds them. The color of the back gradually changes, from yellow it turns into red, with funny dots. As a rule, the transformation occurs within a day, and the insect becomes a ladybug, such as we are used to seeing it. On the first day, they do not fly, but they run and eat.
Growing at home
Not all insects in natural conditions manage to endure the cold. It's the same with bugs living in an artificial environment. Therefore, if you decide to start growing them, get pets in the spring. The chances that your insects will be healthy and viable will increase. Moreover, with the arrival of the first warm days, the activity of the beetles is still not high, they keep in groups, and it is not difficult to collect them.
A house for ladybugs can be a plastic terrarium with a lid, a plywood box with slots for air circulation, or a wooden cage with a covered top.
At the bottom of the box, you need to lay dry leaves, small branches or wood chips. In such conditions, insects will be comfortable, they can live for several months, overwinter, and in spring they can begin to mate.
Food
In spring and autumn, boxes are filled with wet or dried raisins, pieces of cotton wool dipped in sweet water. Wet moss (sphagnum) is spread on the bottom. It is very important to comply with these requirements, since moisture is no less important for them than food, and if both are not enough, they will die.
In spring or early summer, there are few or no aphids at all, so ladybugs get all the nutrients necessary for life from cotton wool moistened with sweet water. It, together with moistened cubes of refined sugar, is laid out on the floor of the box. After waking up, moisture is vital for insects. Therefore, every day, you need to spray water from a spray bottle in the box. Cows are given the pollen of the first flowering plants, for example, coltsfoot. Insects love to feast on the blossoming willow. A jar with such a bouquet standing in water can be installed in a box or cage. After three to four days, the bouquet will need to be replaced with a new one.
It is very difficult to feed the beetles so that they do not fly out, especially if the air temperature is high. If possible, transfer the cage to a room with a temperature no higher than 15-17C. The light should not hit the house, only then it will be difficult for the beetles to find their way - where is the path to freedom.
If the air temperature rises to 20C and higher, the beetles will begin to show increased activity, they will fly continuously, refuse to eat, and will fall. To prevent this, with the onset of hot weather, the cages are taken out to a cold place, with a temperature of no higher than 15C. It will be possible to notice how active insects will become calmer, their appetite will return to them, they will stop flying chaotically and start mating. Choose a secluded corner where partial shade will be most of the day, and place the box with the insects there.
Reproduction
At home, ladybugs reproduce well, and in the spring their number increases significantly.Plants with aphids are placed in boxes, after a while, looking closely, aphid eggs can be found on the leaves. Leaves with egg-laying will need to be taken out and transferred to another cage or glass jar, and new cows will need to be placed. Eggs will be laid on the back of the leaves, perhaps this is how insects take care of their safety, so do not be lazy to look under the leaves. Just make sure that you do not add ants to the cows, they are usually located next to aphids.
Interesting information
- Pupae do not need a lot of food, but when you see young bugs, the portions of food need to be increased.
- In artificial conditions, cows give life to two generations of their own kind.
- When to let the cows go hunting? Experts recommend doing this in the early morning.
Practice shows that collecting and breeding insects can give tangible profits, but you need to be prepared for the hassle of landscaping and feeding funny insects. We remind you that the main thing is water, food and maintaining the recommended temperature regime.
ladybug - one of the most famous beneficial insects. In total, there are more than 2 thousand species of ladybirds. The ladybug has not many enemies: only some birds (field sparrow, nuthatch, flycatcher, redstart, warbler) eat them. But the ladybugs themselves turn out to be a formidable opponent of the most dangerous pest - aphids, for which they are sometimes called aphid cows. During the day, a ladybug eats a hundred, or even more aphids, no less appetite for the larvae of the ladybug. Its larvae eat up to 400 aphids a day, and when they grow up - up to 200.
Together with other varieties, ladybugs have become weapons in the exhausting struggle that humans wage with aphids.
The aphid sticks the proboscis into a leaf, stem or young bark of a tree and, introducing enzymes there that convert starch and protein into sugary and other more easily digestible nutrients. Therefore, they say that aphids have extraintestinal nutrition. Absorbing juices from leaves and shoots, aphids negatively affect plants, suspend their development, cause curvature, wrinkling, deformation of damaged leaves and shoots.
The ladybug also exterminates spider mites that feed on plant juices.
Earwig.
The earwig has an elongated body, about 2 cm. At the end of the abdomen, there are two pincer-shaped non-segmented appendages. These appendages are sometimes called tails, hence the second name of the earwig - two-tailed. In male earwigs, mites are much more developed than in females. They are, first of all, an organ of defense and attack. If the earwig is disturbed, it assumes a defensive posture. In this case, the abdomen bends up and forward, as a result of which the ends of the ticks are located above the head and chest.
The wings of earwigs are shortened or absent. Coloring from yellow-brown to black. They are hygrophilous and thermophilic, they are predominantly nocturnal. During the day they hide under shelters: under the bark of trees, under fallen leaves, clods of earth.
The earwig and ladybug are good for plants, as they eat harmful insects at night. In order to use these insects for good and make them your assistants, you can build a house for them.
You can breed both of these species by building a simple shelter for them - an old flower pot filled with wood shavings or straw, wired and hung upside down on a tree that is affected by herbivorous insects.
Instead of a flower pot, you can take a piece of bark and place it under the tree with the inside facing down. Ladybugs or earwigs will surely settle under it and will breed out of the reach of birds.
Now the time has come for the forces of Nature to act: against the background of a superpopulation of pests, many ladybirds will appear.
This is a natural mechanism, not yet fully explored by science, with the help of which Nature itself restores balance.
Ladybugs and earwigs significantly reduce populations of aphids and herbivorous insects, leading to a healthy balance.
It is clear that they will not completely exterminate them, because then they themselves will have no food left. And with a small, regulated number of insects, I, as a farmer or gardener, can put up with it.
Do you think I'm completely crazy?
Well, yes, you are right, now in our house, besides snails, there is also a ladybug.
She was found in deciduous litter, which I brought from the forest. More precisely, there is a ton of ladybugs) but I didn’t tell the children about that, otherwise they would have left this whole ton to live with us
They found one, and put it in a jar, let it out into the street. Then they stared at the jar for the whole evening, as a result, for 3 days this jar has been at home, and the children are crying over it, they are used to it, and do not want to let go.
I had to dive into the Internet) and that's what I found!
Do you love ladybugs? The cold came, and you found a ladybug that has nothing to eat and drink, since all the water is frozen? Do you want to help her? You can take her as a pet! Ladybugs like aphids, which are garden pests found on plant leaves.
Part 1 of 3: Finding the Ladybug
Find a ladybug.Look where ladybugs usually hide: under the leaves of aphid-infested plants (look at roses and other flowers, or flowering fruit trees). Ladybugs also like to hide in crevices that can be found on buildings, such as window frames.
- Ladybugs love aphids as their main food source.
Take the ladybug.Catch the ladybug with a butterfly net or with your hands, just don't let it fly away. Cover it with your other palm, but do not crush it. Carefully place the ladybug in the jar, you can already start taking care of it.
Part 2 of 3: Home improvement for the ladybug
Use a large enough plastic container for the ladybug.The size of the container should be large enough for small flights and for a night's sleep. Add twigs, leaves and petals to it for variety (any leaves and flowers must be changed daily to prevent rotting). Provide the ladybug with a place to hide, such as a hollow stick or a small toy with holes in it
- You can also use an insectarium.
- Glass jars are not recommended as they overheat quickly and can burn the ladybug, especially when placed in direct sunlight.
If keeping the ladybug for more than 24 hours, use a hermit crab container.They will not be able to get out of it, but at the same time they will be comfortable. Add fresh herbs daily. You also need to feed the insect daily.
Part 3 of 3: Caring for your ladybug
Provide food for the ladybug.Feed her a little honey or sugar. Place food in a small bottle cap.
- You can also feed the ladybug with raisins or lettuce.
Pour into a plastic bottle cap with water.There should be very little water so that the ladybug does not drown.
Feed the ladybug twice a day.You shouldn't give her too much food, just a little is needed.
Be careful when handling the ladybug.This should be done as follows:
- Place your finger next to the ladybug. He should touch the surface on which she sits.
- Wait for the ladybug to crawl or fly onto your finger.
- Now you have it on your hand, but be careful!
Consider releasing the ladybug in 24 hours.You've had enough time to become familiar with her habits, return her to her usual duties of saving your garden from pests.
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Well ... We considered the possibility of letting go, but came to the conclusion that NO)))))))
Therefore, she now lives like this)
Today, honey is in her diet.she was hungry ... hmm ... how long she still sat in the bag ... a half a month !!! Therefore, she immediately rushed to eat)
Do you see her?))))))))
Here she is) Eating
^ _ ^ mimimi, if I still find a ladybug in litter, I will throw it over to this one so it’s not boring))))))))))
