The ladybugs are swarming! My dad’s house sits on an enormous ladybug colony, we see millions of them throughout the year. As the days grow short in the fall, they clump up together and go back underground to hibernate for the winter. In the spring, they slowly emerge from the ground, crowding together on the woodpile or the Red Hot Poker plants. Sometimes you can just watch the ground crawling as they seep up from what must be massive underground caverns. When the weather is just right, they take off, and the air is full of thousands of gold, buzzing specks. My mom used to sing, “They ladybug palace has swung open her gates!” That was usually how we marked the beginning of summer.
The high mountain valley where he lives is a ladybug “bug bed”, so says my good friend from the forestry department. There are strings of these ladybug colonies that stretch for a few miles. It isn’t unusual at all to see fence-posts, tractors, or small buildings entirely covered in them. One time the ladybugs engulfed my parent’s travel-trailer.
The ladybugs are clustering as they prepare to hibernate.
These ladybugs look so sweet, but did you know they are almost always humping? Yes, they are extremely promiscuous! STD’s run rampant through the population, probably 9 out 10 are infected. AND they are cannibals, if the food source gets low, they’ll start munching on their little soft-shelled cousins. They seem to thrive here, though, rarely a shortage of aphids.
I’ve been witnessing this ladybug phenomena my entire life, and I’m still amazed but it.
