One of the party favors at Katie’s ladybug party were pretty lively…we had ordered 1,500 live ladybugs from a company northwest of Los Angeles so that we could send them home with guests to release in their own gardens.
Despite the genteel name, ladybugs are voracious predators who especially like eating the aphids that like to eat roses. Have we got the target rich environment for them!
Because it’s summer, you have to overnight them so these ladybugs are about the fastest you’ll ever find…they averaged 482 knots from LAX to Raleigh with a stop in Indianapolis. They even got to go in style…two widebodied freighters that you don’t see very often in mainline fleets…a DC-10 and an Airbus A-300.
Fortunately, the ladybugs can be stored in the refrigerator up to two weeks…they just go dormant when they’re in there.
What you learn very quickly is that you’ve got all of about three minutes to transfer them from the mesh bag to the jars with holes in their lids because they get real lively, real quick. That was definitely a two-person job to load those jars!
But they were definitely a unique parting gift (after all, when was the last time someone gave you ladybugs?).
So after most of the rain had passed, it was time to release them into the garden to do their aphid eating thing. Those ladybugs were no more cooperative then than they were when they came out of the refrigerator.
Eventually, they did find their way to the roses and the other flowers out front to find a smorgasbord of aphids to munch upon.
Bon apetít!
