Orcon GL-C1000 Live Green Lacewing Eggs, 1,000 Count

The natural enemy of many species of pests, insects, and mites, the Green Lacewings are shipped as eggs that will soon hatch into larvae. The tiny larvae are known as “Aphid Lions” because of their voracious appetites (devouring as many as 10000 aphids per day). They remain as larvae for up to 21 days, just crawling around looking for food. Aphid Lions also make hearty meals of mealybugs, cottony cushion scale, spider mites, caterpillars, whitefly larvae and a wide variety of moth eggs and just about any other soft bodied pests. The adult green lacewing, feeding only on pollen, will lay its eggs, and the life cycle will repeat.

DIRECTIONS : The Lacewings are shipped to you as eggs, and will probably be hatching or very close to hatching by the time you receive them. We mix the Lacewing eggs with rice hulls and moth eggs for food. The rice hulls serve two functions : first, when the Lacewings hatch, they are very hungry! (In fact, they are so hungry that they often resort to cannibalism if there is no food source available). The rice hulls provide separation so they are not as apt to eat each other. The second reason is that since they are so small, it is easier to distribute them if they are in a carrier to give you more volume to work with. A thimble would hold about 10,000 Lacewing eggs!

Sprinkle them around your plants. If you are putting them in trees, you can place small amounts in paper drinking cups and staple them to the leaves. The Lacewing will crawl out and up into the tree or plant. The larvae will feed for about 3 weeks, then they will roll up into a little white pupae and emerge as adult in about 1 week ready to lay eggs! When looking for the newly hatched Lacewing larvae, remember they are quite small, about the size of the pale green or gray egg from which they came, so you may have difficulty seeing them.