Time for the snowbirds to return. And the ladybugs too. That is, if you think they actually live outside.
Unlike the various native ladybugs, who hunker down outdoors, the Asian Ladybug, Harmonia axyridis, often makes itself comfortable in Maine homes, where they prefer to spend the winter.
They enter through those unsealed, unseen, cracks. Which means that if you have ladybugs in your house, heat is probably leaving the same way.
Ladybugs don’t like your heated rooms, but seek the cooler spots in the house where they can lower their metabolism and hibernate. If they get too warm they die. And when they die, you sweep.
In spring they awake, and hopefully find their way out of those unsealed cracks, to get on with their jobs — devouring nasty aphids. Which is a nice way to pay us the rent they owe.
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