Ladybugs

Both my orange tress have not seem to be doing very well.  The very end tips of the leaves are all curly and also full of bugs.  I have sprayed them with organic pesticides and yet, the trees still don't look very healthy:

See what I mean?  I finally then thought about getting some ladybugs to help with my bug (looking mostly like aphids) problem.  I couldn't find any at the nurseries nearby that had them so I figured I'd just order them online.  Ya, can you believe that? You can order LIVE ladybugs online!  And as promised, they were delivered alive :-)

I didn't want to order too many but my options were limited online.  So I ended up ordering 1,500 ladybugs?!!  That's suppose to cover 1,000 sq ft:

I'm glad I didn't leave them out on the porch for too long.  These ladybugs are busy!

Somehow it didn't look like that many in the packaging, but I had to wait a little while to find out as the instructions say to only release a bunch at a time, and only when the sun starts to go down.  So in the meantime, the ladybugs will hibernate in the fridge.  Bobby was not so keen on the idea but thankfully I had some space in the meat drawer :-)

Release the "soldiers"!!!

I love Charlie's expression here.  Ha ha!

Here's Charlie's handiwork with the camera:

We did help place some of the ladybugs on the most infested leaves:

Eat, ladybug, eat!!!

No, not be eaten!!!  This poor ladybug definitely did not see this coming and needless to say, the spider had a nice snack:

Hmmm.... I'm not sure what these 2 ladybugs are doing??!  It's like they are hugging.  Ha ha!

I'm hoping the ladybugs will at least hang out for a bit.  I even bought them a house!

Coincidentally I saw this ladybug house in the improvement store when I was there picking up mulch last week.  The instructions says to hang them lower to the ground so hopefully this might work:

It almost looks like a bee hive on the inside:

So every day since we've released a few lady bugs, I've been going around and looking through all the leaves seeing if there are any left.  I did notice a pupa so that's a good sign!  Looks like a previous ladybug was already here!

And look what else I found a couple days after releasing the ladybugs.... ladybug eggs!!!

Hopefully we will have more ladybugs naturally and I won't actually have to buy some. 

We've released some ladybugs in 3 batches now.  Some are still hanging around.  Charlie would bring them off the tree to show me.   And I keep telling him to put it back in the tree.  Ha!

We did just get back from a 4-day trip and I didn't notice anymore ladybugs in the tree :-(  Well, perhaps the aphids that are left on the leaves are actually dead?  Maybe I need to wipe all those curly leaves down.  In any case, I released a few more this evening just for good measure.  We still have plenty left in the fridge!  I've been taping the little slit from the bag and stapling it up so the remaining ladybugs don't escape.  I can't imagine a fridge full of ladybugs.  Bobby would definitely not appreciate that.  Ha ha!  Well, this has been an interesting experience to say the least :-)