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Ladybugs of course. Sure they may look all cute and cuddly but come mid-october every ladybug in a square mile of forest has only one good spot to hibernate for the winter, my cabin! Some years thanks to a dry fall(like this one) I might only get a few hundred on a sunny afternoon but I'll never forget the year there were thousands at once crawling all over the sunny side of my cabin. Even this year they can at times drive you off the porch what with a dozen or two a minute landing on you and crawling all over you. Plus I have had the little buggers bite me, not often but it does happen, I don't know if they are just trying a bite of something new or after moisture but once in a blue moon one of the zillions that land on me every fall will chomp down on me, not hard enough to break the skin more of a sharp pinch. Hard to enjoy a pretty fall day when that happens.
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The cute little monsters in question are Asian Ladybird Beetles(Harmonia axyridis) which only first showed up in Ohio around 1990. Starting in the 1960's, the U.S. Department of Agriculture attempted to establish the Asian lady beetle to control aphids. Large numbers of the beetles were released in several states including Georgia, South Carolina, Louisiana, Mississippi, California, Washington, Pennsylvania, Connecticut and Maryland. Just another little reminder that we should never go messing around with mother nature.
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