Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, November 22, 1993 TAG: 9311220083
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DWAYNE YANCEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Suppose Alfred Hitchcock had chosen an entomological theme instead of an avian one for his film classic? "The Birds" might have come out something like this:
They're hanging onto the windows at Mike and Suzanne Perdue's house in Troutville, "so thick it's hard to see out."
They've already forced their way into Tom Brobson's place in Clover Hollow in Giles County. "We had guests coming and we pulled blankets out of the cedar chest and they were in there."
They've even invaded the home of Roanoke County Extension Agent John Vest, a writhing "black mass of insects" clustered in a corner of the ceiling. "I guess I've sucked up 500 to 1,000 in the vacuum cleaner," he says.
And so, the horror begins: One minute, gardeners are delighted to find a few humble ladybugs doing aphid-duty in the lima bean patch. The next thing you know, boom, the little buggers are out of control, reproducing like sex-crazed maniacs and swarming like bees on the side of your house, threatening to move in with you for the winter.
In the past month, huge clouds of ladybugs have blown through Virginia - mostly west of the Blue Ridge - and descended on the homes of unsuspecting citizens.
"It looked like rain outside," the ladybugs were coming down so hard, Suzanne Perdue exclaims. "You like ladybugs. They're cute. But when you see them by the hundreds, they get annoying."
Especially when you see them in your living room.
"We've had them fall down our shirts, or down in our hair," Brobson says. "Some people are a little freaked out by all the bugs crawling around. But they're beneficial. For God's sake, don't exterminate them."
Of course, Brobson owns a Christmas tree farm, besides his day job at Virginia Tech. So he's got a vested interest in having a ravenous gang of aphid-eaters around. "I'm looking at six right now walking across the wall. They don't faze me in the least."
But for the rest of us? Well, ladybugs are still bugs, no matter how cute they are.
So the first thing most folks do is call the entomological 911 - the Virginia Tech Cooperative Extension Service. There's scarcely an extension agent in these parts who hasn't heard from flustered homeowners besieged by ladybugs trying to kick in the back door.
"When I got the first call, they were talking about hundreds of ladybugs," recalls Lewis Schiemann, the extension agent in Franklin County. "I thought, `That doesn't sound like ladybugs, because ladybugs don't do like that.' Then I hung up the phone and it was another woman who said she had hundreds of ladybugs."
Turns out they were ladybugs - a new kind from Japan that looks more or less like the regular variety, but with one peculiar habit.
In the fall, when the first nip of cold weather is in the air, these Asian ladybugs swarm. "Convergence," it's called in scientific circles.
In Japan, these ladybugs spend the winter hibernating in crevices on the side of cliffs, huddled by the hundreds and thousands. Now that they're in America, they're trying to do the same thing, only without any cliffs. So they're settling for the next best thing.
"To their little beetle brains, a house looks very similar," says Virginia Tech entomologist Eric Day.
In other words, as soon as Willard Scott says "cold front," these bugs hit the bricks. Or the aluminum siding. Or that rusted-out screen door on the back porch you've been meaning to fix but haven't gotten around to.
"They're good crawlers and they'll find a crevice and get in," Brobson says. The bugs' favorite spots once they get inside: The corners of ceilings, where they hang in big gobs. And we do mean big gobs - 4,000 were counted in an outbuilding in Augusta County.
So how'd these ladybugs get here from Japan?
Ah, now that's a mystery worthy of a federal grant or two.
Scientists first tried to introduce these ladybugs in California in 1916 as a way to fight pests. No luck. From 1978 to 1982, the U.S. Department of Agriculture tried again, mounting a major effort to let the Japanese ladybugs go in 10 states plus the District of Columbia.
Once more, the bugs disappeared - presumed dead - and the experiment was declared a failure.
Then, in 1988, Japanese ladybugs showed up at Abita Springs, La. - just across Lake Pontchartrain from New Orleans. This time, they started marching across the South like General Sherman. (OK, OK, they weren't burning down barns, but you get the picture).
Paul Schaefer, an Agriculture Department entomologist in Delaware who coordinated the original releases, says these ladybugs probably aren't the progeny of his Lost Colony of ladybugs. Instead, he figures these ladybugs probably stole in on an Oriental freighter into New Orleans.
These weren't some wimpy lab variety; these were hardy adventurers, who knew a thing or two about living off the land. So they established a foothold. In their case, a six-foot hold.
However they got here, these ladybugs have been on the move ever since.
Last year they showed up in North Carolina. The first one in Virginia was spotted in January in Lee County. Since then, they've turned up throughout the Old Dominion - and are still going.
In the past week alone, they've been sighted in Maryland, Delaware and Pennsylvania.
Species entering a new ecological niche often rampage across the countryside quickly at first - until they find something to slow them down. "If there's an abundance of food and no competition, they'll explode in numbers," Schaefer says.
But even by those standards, these ladybugs have, scientifically speaking, gone bonkers. Instead of going through one or two generations this summer, they've reeled off four or five. And now they're all trying to bed down for the winter, setting off what Schaefer calls a "mad rush" for sleeping space.
"I think it'll probably be a passing thing," he says. "The populations are not going to continue growing for years on end." Eventually, he says, "they'll stabilize at low levels" - although even those low levels will still want to converge on somebody's brick ranch.
The bottom line: There's nothing we can do about it.
Nor is there anything we should do about, the scientists say.
Ladybugs are harmless. Beneficial, even.
"The biggest danger is just the hysteria of it," Schaefer says.
So let's look on the bright side.
"This is good news for the caulking industry," Schaefer says.
Still, there are unfortunate consequences of this insect invasion the scientists haven't considered.
Take the Perdues, for instance. In Troutville, Mike Perdue scaled his extension ladder, armed with his hand-held vacuum cleaner, and sucked up the ladybugs that had blackened his windows.
Then he sat the appliance down and went on his merry way.
Sometime later, his wife, Suzanne, picked it up to perform a household chore. As is her custom, she emptied the contents first. "When I pulled it open, there were live ladybugs inside. I almost died. I shut it up real quick and made him empty it."
So these ladybugs are responsible for domestic discord, then?
Suzanne Perdue is adamant: "If you put ladybugs in your wife's vacuum cleaner and don't clean it, yes."
by CNB