Every day Joe finds a caterpillar or worm to add to the bug house.
The tiny space is almost at full capacity and soon, we will have to build on an addition to make more room.
“I have to put them in here because they won’t survive the winter.”
But, don’t they? Don’t they find some way to survive the Winter, at least as eggs or larvae, to be born again in the Spring?
Of course they do! But…how?
We were both curious, so we googled it and looked it up in our bug books.
And guess what? Bugs don’t just survive the winter as eggs or larvae.
Some, like the Monarch butterfly, migrate to avoid the cold.
Others, like the ladybug, hibernate. They stack themselves up on logs and under rocks, sharing heat and creating a buffer against the wind. How cool is that!?
Grasshoppers bury their eggs under the soil to protect them from the cold.
Still others, like Japanese beetles and water insects, survive winter as grubs or larvae, under the surface of the ground or underwater.
So this winter, the bug hunters will be active. We will look for ladybug towers and search for beehives. And in the Spring we’ll be digging up those Japanese beetle grubs and feeding them to the chickens.
a pinch of homestead 