Ladybug City

Last week at the park we saw quite a few ladybugs on a certain tree. Yesterday Kaylis wanted to bring her bug house into school but all she had were dead bugs in it so I made her dump it first and she tried to find more bugs - even went back to the tree with John looking for ladybugs, but had no luck (I think they had all turned in for the night ;). So today after school we went to the park and searched the trees - and found 11 ladybugs to Kaylis' delight. We also found some odd looking yellow things on the trees which I surmised could be ladybug eggs. A quick search on google confirmed it when we got home and then low and behold, on top of her ladybug house we found that someone had laid eggs (the yellow blob on the first picture)!

So now we are becoming ladybug experts thanks to google. Did you know you can feed them raisins? They of course prefer aphids, but if none can be found you can soak a raisin in water for 5 minutes and then cut the raisin in half and drop it in their cage. They also like a paper towel in the bottom of their cage that is slightly damp for their water supply. But we added a few spritzs from the water bottle as well, just to be safe. We also sadly found out that they will eat their own eggs - but to make us feel better we have discovered that they will only eat their own eggs if they were not fertilized in the first place. So we're hoping the rest of our eggs have indeed been fertilized. 

We don't have much of a wait - eggs hatch within 2-5 days! Can't wait ;) The larvae then feed furiously on aphids for 2-3 weeks. So we'll have to find aphids soon for them - wish us luck!