A Lady Beetles Life

When we first got our home we started redoing the garden as it had been so overgrown with trees, roses, shrubs and you name it. It was virtually dying because there was to much garden for the size of the property. We got busy and had things taken out and once that was done, of course the next thing was to bring life back to the garden. The thing that was obviously missing, were ladybugs or as I call them, lady beetles.

We got a ladybug lure to attract them and sure enough before we knew it, we had lady beetles of all different colours. The familiar orange ones, but also yellow pink red and black ones. So pretty... I didn't have my digital camera at the time, but I found these images online. Over the years we haven't see as many lady beetles, so it's time for a new lure for next year. Here's a link to read up on those if you're interested for your own garden. Continue below these images for more about these sweet little bugs/beetles.

I wonder how many of you would recognize a ladybug's offspring to be. They might surprize you if you've seen them and thought they were a spider of sorts. I wondered years ago what these were and decided they should not be killed, a hunch told me to leave them be. So I investigated and found I was right to do that.  This is what I spotted and wondered what the heck kind of spider is this. These are the lady beetle larvae. They will feed on aphids until it's time to go to their next stage. Can you see the aphid on the left side of the leaf. Click the image to get a larger view. Recognize them now ?!?!

Once it's time to go to the cocoon, this is what they will morph into next. Even after watering the garden it still hung on...;o) Good thing...

And finally, they will be reborn into what we recognize as our little ladybug/beetle. Next year I hope to have more variety. It was quite exciting as a gardener to see all those different colours of lady beetles when all along I thought they only came in one colour, so I will be impatiently waiting to see what we are blessed with next year...