ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, March 11, 1996 TAG: 9603120021
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-5 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: Monty S. Leitch
SOURCE: MONTY S. LEITCH
I TOLD ERIC Day that I wanted to know something about these ladybugs infesting my house, and he said, ``You are not alone.''
Day manages the Insect Identification Lab for Virginia Tech's Extension Service, and he's the guy extension agents call when they need some technical information. ``If you call an agent to ask about these beetles,'' he said, ``be sure to identify yourself as being from the paper. Otherwise, they'll just shudder. They're the ones in the trenches.''
Day guesses extension agents are fielding hundreds of calls. And John Vest, agent for Roanoke County, says, ``Yes, we sure are.'' As many as three or four a day ``during the times of increased population.''
David Gardner, in Floyd County's extension office, says he gets ``10 or 15 calls a week, during the busy weeks.'' Only John Arbogast, in Roanoke city, seems immune. ``Just skimming over the records,'' he told me, ``I don't see too many.'' Maybe he'd like to take some of Vest's or Gardner's calls.
These critters are officially named ``Multi-Colored Asian Lady Beetles,'' although entomologists call them Harmonia axyridis. And, Day says, they're actually beneficial. ``They feed on aphids, particularly in fruit and nut trees.''
That accounts for the fact that the USDA was importing them between 1916 and 1985. The thinking was that fewer pesticides would be required on crops if the harmless lady beetles could be introduced to feast on the nasty aphids. Day adds calmly, ``It was unknown to researchers that the species would become house-invading.''
None of those colonies seemed to thrive, however, until, in 1988, in Louisiana, just east of New Orleans, Harmonia axyridis showed up in force. ``That's near a cargo-handling facility,'' Day says, ``and so no one knows whether the introduction was the result of those intentional USDA efforts, or unintentional.''
Whichever, the beetles are here. And Day's calls about them fall into three general categories: ``Most people want to know how to control them. A few, a very few, want to know how to save them. And then, there are a few who're frothing at the mouth, wanting to know how to sue the USDA.''
The beetles in my house - and the ones in your house, too - are merely over-wintering. Day assures me they aren't reproducing there.
``Are you sure?'' I asked him.
The ones in my house - and in your house, too - have been there since Oct. 14. (He knows this is the date that lady beetles seek out winter shelter because his phone calls start on Oct. 15.) ``Getting in the house is a fatal mistake for them, too,'' Day says.
``Are you sure?''
Yes, because there are no aphids in the house for the lady beetles to eat. In Japan, in their native habitat, lady beetles winter in rocky cliff faces, deep in the fissures. Day guesses that houses are the closest approximation to cliffs they can find around here. (He doesn't know whether they get in the houses in Japan. ``That's an interesting question.'')
``The best way to get rid of them,'' he says, ``is just to vacuum them up.'' They pose no danger. They carry no diseases, and they won't poison pets or curious toddlers who put them in their mouths. ``They might bite a little,'' Day says. ``Give you a little nip. And they'll stain your clothes if you crush them. But mainly, they're just a nuisance.''
Indeed.
This is the time of year, too, that lady beetles are coming awake again. March and April. They feel the heat. They want to get outside and find some trees. They want to eat some aphids. They want to start reproducing again.
Out there, in the trees, fat with aphids, the lady beetles will go through a couple of generations over the summer.
And then, Oct. 14, they'll move back into your house.
Keep telling yourself: ``They're beneficial.'' Say this over and over: ``Mainly, they're just a nuisance.''
And if, by some miracle, you have no lady beetles in your house, John Vest has a couple thousand in his that he'd be glad to send you.
Monty S. Leitch is a Roanoke Times columnist.
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