Growing Lady Bugs and Painted Ladies

Painted Lady CaterpillarLady Bug LarvaWe ordered a set of young larva of Lady Bugs and Painted Ladies.  This is our first year for Lady Bugs, which made for some work not having the right house for the larva to mature inside.  Karen is very resourceful and quickly came up with a Lady Bug house.  The caterpillars were less than a ¼ inch in length and quickly grew to about an 1½ in length.  The lady bugs were about the same length, but were much more active and quickly spread all about their little house.

Painted Lady ReleaseIn about 2 weeks, we had Painted Ladies and Lady Bugs ready for release.  The release was so quick that I didn’t get a photo of the Lady Bugs being let go.  Sadly, two of our Painted Ladies had a misshaped wing, but we put them on our flowers.

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