TIMES RECORD • June 2, 2024
We peered into a cardboard box and welcomed 1,000 lady beetles to the Maine woodlands. It had been a long ride from Tree Savers, the Pennsylvania laboratory where these beetles were raised. Very soon the beetles would meet their new home tree, an eastern hemlock at Crystal Spring Farm in Brunswick, which bore the white, webby sign of an unwanted boarder, the hemlock woolly adelgid (HWA). Left unchecked, this aphid will sap a hemlock of nutrients, eventually killing it. As a recent invasive first found in our area in 2010, HWA has no native predators. The hope is that these beetles, who eat only hemlock woolly adelgids, will establish themselves and spread into the forest’s hemlocks. The most promising strategy may be the introduction of such natural controls as our beetle friends. ~ Sandy Stott, chairperson, Brunswick Conservation Commission