Asian lady beetles that is! It’s been pretty cold the last couple weeks with no bugs. (FINALLY!) But it’s warmed up the last few days and I walked into the train room today to find about 100 dead lady beetles laying all the floor. I heard this strange tapping noise and looked up to a few hundred swarming all over the ceiling![banghead] I don’t DARE try and run a train with all those living speed bumps crawling all over my track.[V] Anybody else having this problem? These little suckers BITE too!
Do you mean Japanese Beetles – look like a lady bug beetle but are yellow instead of redish orange? I’ve never heard of any bugs hatching out this time of year. Lady Bug Beetles hatch in the spring because they feed primarily on rose aphids. Just a couple of days of warm weather should not have triggered hatching.
Quick, Henry, the Flit! Remember that commercial? Do they still make Flit bug spray? Your best bet would be some type of household bug spray such as Black Flag or Hot Shot, and then you’ll have to carefully vacuum all the dead carcasses off the layout.
I noticed this yesterday. There everywhere. Its like a monster movie…
We wouldn’t be talking about one of these guys … Would WE!
Completely decimated my Asiatic Lillies the last three years. Rose Doctor and fire is the only cure for these guys.
Fergie
Fellas, it is the time of year when spiders and other creepy crawlies do two things…come indoors under your weather stripping and hatch thousands of young. If they do the latter indoors…
Go to Walmart, get Raid Fumigator in the blue box, set two off wherever the problem is most prevalent, and call it a year.
-Crandell
Those are nasty. The normal ones we typically call “ladybugs” are harmless, in fact beneficial, and this time of year they will try to find a place to hibernate. You will probably find a bunc between the screen and window of just about any window of your house - they won’t survive there, they will dry out int he dry winter air. Those more recent invaders, they are harmful and annoying. The one we have around here is a non-native stinkbug - they get in EVERYTHING. Most pest sprays don’t kill them, either - and they have no natural predators. Squashing them is not an option…they aren’t called stinkbugs because of the wya they look. They don’t bite humans or pets, but they are VERY annoying as they fly into an onto everything and everyone.
–Randy
I have the lady bugs, not like the one in the picture. Just not many yet. Normally the boxer, or one of the cats get them. They have to get through them before getting to the layout. Plus lady bugs bring good luck!!
How about a pic? NJ ladybugs don’t bite - let one of our resident entomoligists see it to tell you what it is!! Better sleep with a loaded gun!![:O]
That sucks. Get some bug killer and spray it in a mist over the cieling, lol. THAT’LL WORK!
I think he is talking about these things: : Asian Ladybugs
They have been around this area since the mid 90s and sometimes number in the thousands all trying to get inside someplace to winter over. They can bite but are harmless and are a beneficial insect.
Howmus-THOSE are the little buggers! They look just like lady bugs but they’re yellow. Chemicals don’t really work on them. They’ll be dead in a few days when we get a cold snap. The swarms look like the Florida Love Bugs right now though.
It says the USDA introduced them to kill the aphids, but they didn’t realize nothing feeds on them.[xx(]
Way to go USDA! Just swept up another pile of them.
Saw a lot at my son’s home in NC this weekend (to keep it train related–he lives not far from the old route of the Clinchfield). They were abundant particularly in sunny areas–probably added polka dots to the grill of the car as we drove along.
As agents ‘K’ & ‘J’ would undoubtedly tell you these are creatures from another galaxy sent to earth to learn our technology. Be afraid…very afraid.
Mainetrains [banghead]
I know those that you speak of- they are harmless but they get into everything and crawl over everything and they stink when you smash them. When the weather is cold they are gone but the minute it gets warm here they come again.
We had thousands of them in our house when it was first built. They had just completed building the house when we went in to see how it looked. This was a couple of days before the walk through.
The bugs were all over the windows, in the carpet, on the walls just everywhere. When we left we stopped at the builders office and told them about it. They said they still had to let the cleaning people in to do a final cleaning and they would vacuum up the lady bugs.
When we did the walk through all the bugs were gone. So if you could vacuum them up it would probably be the best way of getting rid of them.
Bill