Day 15 - hip hip hooray! hip hip hooray! hip hip hooray! for Meghan!!!

"HOORAY!!!! I am sooooooooo glad that you gave us some food!!!" said all of the ladybugs that were in the tank. All of the ladybugs are doing just fine. But the pea plant on the other hand; is so big that I had to nock it over. Even though I knocked it over, it is still at the top of the tank.

Day 14 - OK; When is anything going to happen?!

Today we put new dry food in the tank. But I don't think anything is going to happen just yet. I bet part of the problem is that it is so cold outside.  But then again; they hold male sperm for like 3 months.

Day 13 - Eh

Today nothing is happening. But I  can tell you that the pea plant is literately the tallest house grown plant I have ever seen!! when you open the lid it is poking through. But otherwise all the ladybugs are fine and eating and mating. A lot of ladybugs are dying from drowning and falling off the roof and can't get back up.

Day 12 - OMG!

Man! You should look at our pea pod plant!! No joke; it is literally touching the top of the tank! (to the lid). Everything is totally fine and awesome!!! Every single ladybug is eating and mating. But, unfortunately A TON of ladybugs have died from falling off the roof and couldn't get back up. :-(

FEBRUARY 10TH



TODAY!

Day 11 - WOW

All the ladybugs are perfectly fine!!! They are all acting normal!  Everyone is eating and mating. The ladybugs still not layed eggs yet. :-{ Hahahahaha!!! I just remembered something; Chloe, my cat loves to look in the tank and think that maybe, just maybe get her paws on one of the ladybugs.

Day 10

Yay!!! Today we put new dry food in the tank! (1/2 of a teaspoon). And the pea pod is HUGE!!!!! It is almost to the top of the tank. On the other hand, everything seems to be doing well. All they want to say is: "Yea yea yea. We are fine now get out of our sight!"

 

 

Day 9

Just as the other days, the ladybugs are doing just fine!!!!! They are still eating the dry food and the aphids (if there are aphids in there). And the best part is that they seem to be drinking from the cotton balls!! :-)

Day 8

Today the ladybugs acted the same as all the rest of the days we have had them.
We have not seen any eggs. I have started to name them; one is named Jo, another is named Sally, Bob, and the last one is named Stacy, of course!

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Day 7 - Ugh!! When are we going to do anything fun!?

"ABCDEFGHIJK... come on we can't even sing our ABC's! Man, we are never going to do anything fun!" the ladybugs say every day. The ladybugs still have not laid their eggs. (assuming they are going to lay eggs...) But they probably won't for a while because of the info me and my mom read about them yesterday.

Day 6 - I'M HUNGRY!!

Ok, gotta change things up. I'm not convinced that there are any aphids left, so I'm guessing that the poor bugs are hungry. We decided to add some of the dry ladybug food to the tank.

We added 1/2 tsp of dry food (mixture of brown sugar and powdered milk) to a small bowl and added it to the tank. Haven't seen any bugs get excited about it yet, but let's give it some time! I just don't want these cuties to go hungry! Oh, cuties... Wonder if they like oranges?? Maybe I will have to Google that one to see - they did come in a container that had something that looked like fruit... Maybe an orange would work?

Day 5 - Man when is anything gonna happen?

Well, still no eggs. I did learn that the ladybugs could hold male sperm for 2-3 months, so it could be some time before we actually see any eggs...

We've had a few bugs die - I suppose it's the circle of life. They fall on their backs and then can't get up, and well, then they die because they can't turn over.

I think we actually had a casualty in the little cup of water too - looked like there was a floating bug in there. :( I'm wondering if I should remove the cup?

It looked like there were a lot less bugs today - they're not hanging out by the light like they had been. I was worried, UNTIL I opened the lid...

The pictures aren't very good, but it seems like they like to hide under the lid where we can't see them! Maybe they don't like being on display... Who can blame them...

  

Day 4 - Changing things up a bit...

Well, we decided that the cotton ball wasn't going to be a sufficient source of water, so we're trying to mist the tank every day or so with water. This should make the plants moist and also give the bugs enough water too. We are still keeping with the watered cotton balls, and actually added one into a little cup of water so it would remain moist, but I'm afraid that they might drown if they accidentally get into that cup of water...

It does look like they are using the cotton ball (for water) still though - just caught a bug chilling out on one...

Day 3 - We have an escapee!

They are still pretty happy - they seem to be really attracted to the light of the tank. They all like to walk around upside down on the lid of the tank.

Watering the plants and the ladybugs is a two person job let me tell you! The aphids don't seem to care about the lid being open, but those lady bugs sure are eager to escape! I think we lost one that decided to take flight outside of the tank. Oops!

We haven't had any aphids escape - that I know of. I'm actually not even sure how many are left now - I think those ladybugs may have been really hungry, and ate them all up. Gonna keep my eye on that to see if I can find any moving around for the next couple of days. Might have to come up with an alternate food source for them... Till tomorrow...

Day 2 - Water?

We decided to experiment with water. We weren't sure how to efficiently give them water, so we decided to soak some cotton balls in water and put them on a string so we could easily remove them from the tank. We tried to be responsible and use a control cotton ball that was outside of the tank so we could see when we needed to change the cotton balls. Man, those things dry up fast! When we woke up today, the control cotton ball was almost dried up. So we decided to change them out. The cotton balls in the tank were more moist than the control cotton ball - probably because of the humidity in the tank, but, still seemed pretty dry... Gonna  have to change them out every day (maybe even 2 times a day) I think...

Day 1 - They have arrived!

Today the ladybugs arrived. We were really surprised because of the storms in the east.

They came in a little cup - it looked like a restaurant to-go cup, and there were so many of them! You could hear them walking around (wish I would have taken a picture).

We placed the ladybugs in our tank and left them in the cup so they could get used to their surroundings and get out at their own pace. Man, did they seem happy! It looked like they started mating almost right away!

We added the aphids as their food source too, they really seemed to enjoy those guys! Wonder  how long they will last...