A plague of ladybirds!!

[FatBloke]

The air is thick with them!!  Millions upon millions of little red beetles on the wing. And in the house and on me when I venture outside!!

At least they seem to be the native 7 spot variety and not the invading forrin beetles!

[Hello, I am Bruce]

We have a plague of greenfly, and no ladybirds.

Perhaps we can swap.

[TimO]

I remember getting caught in a similar things years back when I was a kid, on Pendine Sands, which is a huge and exposed area.

I don't really mind Ladybirds in general but that was a bit "Ugg".

[Feline]

Can't ladybirds bite you?

I saw a few flying around in the Cotswolds too, seemed to be an awful lot of insects around in general. At one point a wasp was sat on my front light, so I had to stop the bike and knock it off with a crisp (it was all I had that was biodegradable!) so it didnt land in my face when I was riding.. a wasp on me is likely to make me crash!

[itsbruce]

You stopped, opened a crisp packet and then hit the wasp with a crisp? 

Or were you munching crisps as you rode along?

[clarion]

We have ladybirds with appalling timing round here.  Had a load earlier in the year, which died off, then the blackfly had a party.  Now they're just about done with, and we've had to use a spray (organic), the ladybirds have come back.

[woollypigs]

Years ago my mum owned a green, what you would nearly call hi-viz, fiat. One hot summers day we went to the beach but had to bail out and retreat. Since these little buggers were there in there by the millions, never seen that many in one place. We jumped into the car, which were now more orange/black that hi-vis green.  Even before we started the engine and put on the fans, it was a very hot day, they were crawling into the car, like in a horror movie.

The following winter we still had ladybird "flying" out when we turned on the heater in the car.

[Kim]

You stopped, opened a crisp packet and then hit the wasp with a crisp? 

I was wondering about that bit as well.  Assumed it was one of those things that sounds daft but made perfect sense at the time, like murdering a tent-invading earwig with the battery from my mobile phone.

A friend recently discovered that ladybirds can indeed bite, though only because she left one on her arm for ages because she was watching it.  Perhaps they only do it when bored?

[longers]

A friend recently discovered that ladybirds can indeed bite, though only because she left one on her arm for ages because she was watching it.  Perhaps they only do it when bored?

I found that out a few years ago, I sat and watched it walk up the inside of my arm to my elbow where it sank it's bitey thing into my arm and then flew off. I'm not sure what their bitey thing is called and a quick search hasn't thrown up an answer.

There were lots spotted in Nuneaton last week but not plague proportions.

[robbo6]

Bitey things on insects are mandibles.

[longers]

Ta, I think I remember it having a proboscis type arrangement for biting me with. Would there be mandibles on the end of that?