AMERICAN BUG FARM

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 74, Issue 148, 25 June 1931, Page 9

AMERICAN BUG FARM

DESTROYING CITRUS PESTS. Raising bugs to eat other bugs is the sole purpose of an insect farm in California, with a capacity of from 80,000 to 300,000 lady bugs a day. When mealy bugs threatened to destroy the Californian orange groves, some of which are valued at £lOOO an acre, citrus growers began searching for a means of controlling this pest, and found the answer in the Australian lady bug (Leis conformis), the little beetle known to children as the “ladybird,” which is a deadly enemy of the other insect. A few thousand of these “ladybirds” were collecetd in Australia and sent to America, where a small building was constructed as a nursery for them. To-day the farm includes 2S buildings, each of six rooms or bug comparmeuts. Referring to the work in progress at this insectary, Popular Mechanics states that the feed bill includes over 5000 sacks of the finest potatoes a year, and a crew of men is employed to tend the baby insects. The temperature in the bug room is kept near eighty degrees constantly, and the larvae are grown on the sprouts of potatoes. The grown bugs are easy to catch, as their quarters are kept dark until time for gathering them, when a light is thrown on a screen and they throng to the light. The lady bugs are delivered in capsules, ten insects to a capsule, and one capsule is placed in each infested tree. The lady bugs bewin their war of extermination almost immediately, and clearan orange grove of mealy bugs in a remarkably short time. The insectary is provided with an air-conditioning system that removes dirt and supplies proper humidity and temperature, and the plant itself is insect-proof in order to keep the lady bugs safely in and other bugs out.