Ladybugs

Even though I know from experience that I never use most of the garden gadgets that I order from my seed catalogs, the gadget section remains one of my favorite parts of my catalogs. It is with great amusement that I read the entries for ladybugs. For only $10.95 you can buy one third cup or 1500 ladybugs to eat other, more harmful bugs in your garden. The catalog offers hints on what you can do to entice your 1500 ladybugs to stay in your yard. No thank you. For the past four years my house has been crawling with ladybugs. Each fall our local papers tell us not to worry. They only want to share the warmth of our homes for a few months. Come summer they will leave of their own accord. This is true, but not the whole truth. They smell bad. They do occassionally bite when they get mad. And they have a high mortality rate. Lots of little beetle corpses lying around lets everyone know its been awhile since you've vacuumed. Like most people who like to read, I have favorite authors--a few whose books I buy sight unseen just because it's them. Annie Dillard is one of mine though I haven't heard anything from her for some time. In one of her early books she wrote about the bugs with whom she was sharing a cabin. She never killed them. She just watched them. For awhile I tried to emulate her, but only for awhile. There are just too many bugs around here. Fascinating as they are, I would rather they stayed outside. I have been observing these ladybugs though. How can I help it? They are always a few feet away on my favorite windows. Last year, as my golden retriever, Molly, lay dying, there were thousands of them. I remember talking to her and trying to cheer her up several times a day while vacuuming them up all around her. This year the invasion is much smaller. We have between forty and fifty on our front windows at any given time. I have been taking a glass cup with about and inch of water in it and plunking them in it about three times a day. They can't seem to get out of water. New ones start crawling out of cracks when the old ones are caught, and eventually there are forty or fifty again. Why is that do you suppose? Do they defend territories? Do you only assume you're always seeing the same bugs when they're actually coming and going in and out of the cracks? Why keep the exposed number at a steady forty to fifty? [Last year there were many more at a time.] I briefly considered going into the ladybug business, but rejected it. People who believe in them probably want live ones. Mine die at an alarming rate. These are Asian ladybugs, imported to help defend crops. I have noticed not having many bug problems in the garden lately, except with Tatsoi and Chinese cabbage. I can't grow them unless I use a floating row cover. Is that a Clue?