Ladybirds

Posts

• nutcutlet Posts: 27,445

  2 February

  It's too warm to hibernate indoors, they come in but are awake and need food. Generally there is none indoors in winter so they die. Put it under some shrubs outside. 

  
  
  In the sticks near Peterborough

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• wild edges Posts: 10,497

  2 February

  My parents' house tends to fill up with ladybirds in the colder rooms over winter. They hang about around the window frames where there's a bit of a draught keeping them cooler. They're usually the Harlequin ladybirds which are very variable in pattern and colour.
  

  If you can keep your head, while those around you are losing theirs, you may not have grasped the seriousness of the situation.
  

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• bédé Posts: 3,095

  2 February

  The gap between my secondary double-glazing fills up with hibernating ladybirds.  I don't notice them until the first warming sun of spring.  They are on the move today.  Maybe I should give them some help,  but it is either starvation or the next frost in the unforgiving outer world.

   location: Surrey Hills, England, ex-woodland acidic sand.
  "Have nothing in your garden that you don't know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."

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• marion evans Posts: 27

  3 February

  Thank you for your response bede. I too was wondering what they would eat, but putting it out is not an option i will take, so fingers crossed it survives.

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• marion evans Posts: 27

  3 February

  Thank you wild edges, I was not aware that they had different species, I've learnt something new.

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• marion evans Posts: 27

  3 February

  nut cutlet, thanks for your advice but I live in N.Wales and feel it would not survive if I put it out. Next time I see it on the window I will open it and see what happens.

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• WonkyWomble Posts: 4,541

  3 February

  I was thinking of collective group names... Such as a murder of crows.... I've decided it should be a cuddle of ladybirds. See picture.
  
  

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• Crazybeelady Posts: 778

  3 February

  I think you should put it outside, I've usually got the odd one in the garden overwinter that I keep an eye on and they always survive out there. This year's one is at the base of an old echinops head.

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• marion evans Posts: 27

  5 February

  Cazybeelady I have followed your and others advice and opened the window, but it doesn't venture out and it's too high for me to reach and help it on it's way but I will persevere.

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• bédé Posts: 3,095

  5 February edited 5 February

  They ignore a window that has been opened.  If you try to give them a helping hand, they are lively and B******s to catch.
  THose I have caught I put on a for-now-on frostfree  shrub outside.

   location: Surrey Hills, England, ex-woodland acidic sand.
  "Have nothing in your garden that you don't know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."

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