Ladybugs Eat Aphids for Organic Plant Health

Sherri Harrah:

So biology in motion is what this video is about. This is a milkweed plant that is covered with little yellow milkweed aphids all along the stems. And as you can see, the hungry little ladybug hunting for her prey right now. She eats tons of aphids. So it is a very great control for aphids on any edible plant or any host plant to the butterfly. So that’s wonderful.

And if you ever see these little guys, I don’t know if you can see that right there. That’s a baby ladybug. That’s a nymph stage of the ladybug. So the ladybugs mate then lay eggs, then this little guy hatches out. The larva eats a ton of aphids too. So the adult and the larval stage eats tons of aphids. And then it’ll pupate into this little guy, which it’s really hard to see on there. It’s hanging almost like a butterfly caterpillar connects with silks. That’s exactly how that little baby ladybug pupa will kind of metamorphosize underneath the leaf.

And then it’ll emerge as the adult ladybug.

So ladybugs are really fun and easy to release on your own or with the family. At first, you would wet your plant and right at sundown you would go take your ladybugs fresh out of the refrigerator because they kind of get cold and in a sleepy state. You would take them right out of the refrigerator on your newly wet plants because they want to drink first. And you’ll open it up and they’ll emerge, and then they’ll go take care of the insect problem for you. So there’s always a bug to eat another bug. Then we don’t have to use as many insecticides.