EXTENSION EXPERTS OFFER REMEDIES FOR INVASION OF LADYBUGS

It's a bit difficult to take a plague of ladybugs seriously but not for people whose houses have become infested in recent days.

The Perryville office of the University of Missouri Extension Service took 14 calls Tuesday morning from people wondering what to do about the ladybugs invading their houses.

The ladybugs are trying to come indoors to hibernate for the winter. They get inside through door frames, the holes around light fixtures and other openings. "They crawl through cracks we don't even think about," says Frank Wideman, an Extension agricultural engineer in Perryville.

In the past, he has seen infestations of as many as 300 ladybugs on an interior wall.

Gerald Bryan, an agronomist in the Extension Service's Jackson office, disagrees with information contained in a recent Associated Press story that advocated using insecticides to rid a house of ladybugs. Besides the environmental concerns of using an insecticide indoors, Bryan objects to killing an insect that is one of the most beneficial for both gardeners and farmers.

Ladybugs are particularly adept at controlling the aphid population.

"They are one of our best friends in the garden and in helping us reduce our dependence on insecticides," Bryan said.

His solution to ridding a house of ladybugs is to vacuum them up, walk to a wooded area and release them. "Hopefully they will find another spot to go through the winter," Bryan said.

The current wave of invaders are Asiatic ladybugs, which come in a variety of shades from yellow to red. "They're all ladybugs and they are all natural biological predators," Bryan said.

Ladybugs are susceptible to most insecticides. "If you do spray, there's a good chance you are reducing the ladybug population," Bryan said.

The infestation is more pronounced than usual this year because of last year's mild winter. The good thing about the glut of ladybugs this year is that there should be fewer insects overall next year, said Bryan.

Wideman said ladybugs sometimes bite as a defense mechanism, but the bite is just irritating, not toxic.

A few of the people who have called his office have been irate about finding the bugs in their houses, but most people calm down when they're told how beneficial the insect is, Wideman said.

"For a week or so each fall they get to be a little bit of a headache," he said.