The Good Life in Aggtelek National Park Part XXXV: Hunting Ladybugs with a Vacuum

People often ask us, living in the forest without a TV or Internet (yes, after 1.5 years we are still waiting), what do you do in the evening? There is always something to do. It might be chopping wood, cracking walnuts, darning socks, canning jam, making szörp, making pickles or processing some vegetables, processing and freezing wild mushrooms, or it could be something crazy like the last two nights: hunting ladybugs! With the surprisingly warm weather, there has been an explosion of ladybugs crawling up any light coloured surface. I love ladybugs - they are my lucky animal. But, they have also invaded our home - hundreds of them! After some research, they are mostly the invasive Asian Harlequin variety that come in orange, black and yellow, and with many more spots than the red 7-spotted indigenous species. These Asian ladybugs are taking over the domestic ladybug habitats. Although they are still great for the garden because they eat aphids (where were they in the spring when we needed them?!), and are harmless, contending with hundreds crawling over the walls inside the house was a bit much. They do not hatch larvae inside, or eat furniture, or do any other harm except shit yellow when bothered - they are just looking for a place to hibernate. They particularly massed in and around the ends of our curtain rods for some reason. Not wishing to harm them, I found an environmentally-friendly method of dealing with them. By placing a nylon stocking between two sections of the vacuum cleaner tube (folding over the end and securing with a rubber band if necessary) one can trap and release them outside. We have done this for two nights in a row now; Kata lugging the vacuum and moving the chair around as I aim the vacuum hose and hunt those "waskally wabbits." It makes for quite a scene, and hours of evening entertainment ;-)