With their translucent wings and long antennae, lacewings look like delicate elves. The animals can occasionally be found indoors, especially in autumn and winter. We'll show you why this is so in this article.
What to do with a lacewing in the house?
If you discover a lacewing in your apartment insummer, you can carefully capture the animal with a glassandbring outside. In the winter months, frost-free but very cool rooms such as the granary are used by insects for overwintering.
How do lacewings overwinter indoors?
The animals come into the house in autumn andcrawl intonarrowcracks,which they find in barns, arbors, attics, behind curtains, Find cabinets or pictures. Herefallthey fall into acold paralysis.
If you are woken up by rising temperatures or light, they will buzz around for a short time, but usually quickly hide again.
Can lacewings survive indoors?
If the conditions are right,the lacewings that hibernate in buildings survivemany months. If their life expectancy is normally only around eight weeks, they will Insects that overwinter in a protected, cool place up to a year old.
Do I have to fight lacewings in the apartment?
Since they do no harm, you shouldjust leave the very useful animals alone. You can place flying lacewings on houseplants and offer them food in the form of sugar water or diluted honey.
With luck, they lay their eggs on the leaves and aphid lions hatch, which kill not only aphids, but also thrips and other harmful insects.
Can I release lacewing larvae indoors?
lacewing larvae, which you can purchase in specialist shops packed in a honeycomb system,are well suitedforaphid controlin theApartment:
- Shake the animals out of the packaging directly above a houseplant infested with pests.
- Place all infected plants close together so that the aphid lions can crawl from one food source to another.
- Since the larvae tend to cannibalism, pay attention to the dosage instructions.
Tip
Breeding a second generation of lacewings indoors
After about seven to ten days, the aphid lions begin to pupate. You can recognize this by the bright cocoons that can be found on the houseplants. With a bit of luck, you can raise a second generation of lacewings by offering the newly hatched insects food in the form of sugar water or diluted honey.
