TODAY'S LECTURE ON ENTOMOLOGY WILL FOCUS ON

MULTICOLORED ASIAN LADY BEETLES

Now you have an option. You can click on the link and read the entire scintillating paper written by Jeffrey D. Hahn, Assistant Extension Entomologist at the University of Minnesota, or, you can let me interpret the most salient facts regarding this charming little bugger. (An accidental pun, the only kind I can make.)

Point 1: Although multicolored Asian lady beetles were never released in Minnesota, they moved into the state from nearby areas. They were first sighted in Minnesota in 1995. The first report of major infestations around buildings occurred in 1998, and by 2000 the insect had generally dispersed throughout the state.

This much is true. Prior to 2000 the only ladybugs that I ever saw around here were the red ones that we were taught to sing to. You know the song. "House on fire, children will burn." (As a child this was particularly disturbing to me, but they didn't have ratings on nursery rhymes back then.)

Point 2: In Asia, these insects are usually found congregating in large numbers on white colored cliffs each fall, to overwinter.

How charming. Only this isn't Asia and there are no white colored cliffs anywhere near here.

Point 3: From the exteriors of buildings they crawl under siding and roofing and into cracks and gaps in foundations and around windows, doors and other openings. They may continue to move into the living areas of homes or they may spend the winter inside the attic or wall voids. Mild, sunny winter days can wake these dormant insects. They become active and move into the home's living quarters. Once spring arrives, the remaining lady beetles wake up and attempt to move outdoors.

Wake up? These little bastards swarm until spring. They do not go to sleep. They come in the house, collect in the corners waiting for you to turn a light on and then swarm around the light. They land on your food, body, bed, any exposed surface is their domain. Seal everything tight because there is nothing like opening the butter dish and finding one stuck in the butter. Or, drinking from your can of soda and feeling one in your mouth. They are as hard to get to sleep as my grandson on Friday night.

Point 4: Although multicolored Asian lady beetles can be a nuisance when they occur in large numbers, they do not damage homes or other property.

I consider my psyche my property, and there is damage occurring to the point of my running around the house madly trying to vacuum up the last one. Hah, the last one my ass, they're now attuned to the sound of the vacuum and scuttle their little butts into hiding the moment I crank it up.

Point 5: These lady beetles cannot sting and they do not carry disease. They can pinch the skin and cause minor, short-lived discomfort.

Sting, bite, who gives a shit what you call it. These little monsters clamp so hard onto your body that you can't flick them off. They suction themselves onto you and then "pinch" the skin. "Pinch the skin" is a euphemism for taking a big hunk of meat out of you. And, god forbid, you don't shake out your 'jammies before getting into bed at night, because if there is one in there, lodged between you and the sheets, they can leave a trail of "pinches" across your body that swell up and itch like hell. Short-lived discomfort to me means something that does not leave scabs.

Point 6: They can secrete a strong smelling yellowish liquid from the joints of their legs, a process called reflex bleeding.

You call it "reflex bleeding," I call it, "That goddamned bug just pissed all over me." And when they say "strong smelling," I say "That smells like the bottom of a laundry pile from in a men's locker room, like the bad egg you cracked and ruined your appetite for three days." It smells ghastly. It smells so bad that if one is crawling across your face while you're sleeping and you automatically brush it off, the smell is so bad it wakes you up. And then you go downstairs, wash your face and your hands and try to go back to sleep. Which, of course, you can't do. They are swarming again because you turned on the light and they're just waiting for you to close your eyes...because they are going to get you again.

There is a secondary precipitating factor for this excretion of foul smelling piss. Death, or their fear of it. I vacuumed approximately 50,000 (okay, maybe 2,000) of these up on Saturday. On Sunday I thought I would continue the quest, turned on the vacuum and almost vomited. The smell from the vacuum exhaust was horrid. I changed the bag. Turned the vacuum on again. Still there. I took the hose from the vacuum outside and shook a good 100 of them out of there, grabbed the Febreeze and sprayed the hose, the vacuum, the new bag, and anything else within sight. I also decided that the rest could just hang out until next weekend.

Point 7: Prevention is the most effective step in managing lady beetles. Check the outside of your home for spaces and cracks that may allow insects easy entry.

Hey, wasn't this supposed to protect me from poisonous gas and biological attacks back around the time that Bush was amping us up for his war on Iraq? I knew then, as I know now, that if I were to seal my house tight enough to keep out the bugs and the gas, it would effectively lead to my death from asphyxiation.

Every year they get worse and worse. I have lived with cockroaches in the south, not willingly, but unavoidably. I have lived with rattlesnakes in the desert. I have even managed to survive the Hare Krishnas of the 60's in LA. But, I swear, these things are going to kill me or drive me crazy. You can't poison them, you can't vacuum them, you can't do anything except hope that kudzu makes it this far north and takes my mind off of them.