Warm weather keeps Asian Lady Beetles around

With the unseasonably warm weather, Asian Lady Beetles are sticking around longer than usual.

They don't die off when it freezes, they go into hibernation in attic spaces and between walls until the weather warms up.

Right now, the ground around Elizabeth Giese's home is covered in dead lady beetles.

"Summer wasn't bad, but when it started getting cool all of a sudden from the fields, you could just see them flying in," Giese said.

She keeps a mini vacuum outside to help get them out of her home, and it's filled with the bugs. She's tried pesticides and her hose on the outside, but the bugs have also managed to get inside.

This isn't surprising to Paul Whitaker a Professor of Biological Studies at UW Marathon County.

"The reason they get into people's houses is because in China where they're from, they're hibernating in cracks and crevices in cliffs," Whitaker said.

Like other animals that hibernate, they're also on the lookout for food.

"They will bite this time of year. The insects they feed on are scarce so they're very hungry and they're very cranky, like many people are when they're hungry," Whitaker said.

It's too late to get a bug barrier sprayed around your house according to Whitaker, but if they do decide to hibernate in your home, it's usually not an issue.

"If they get in between the stud space like between the outside and inside wall, on a warm day they might become active and look for a way out. And sometimes that way is outside, and sometimes that way is through a light outlet or an electrical outlet and it's inside your house," Whitaker said.

As for Giese, she just wants the bugs gone.