Insect Lore Ladybug Land | Ladybug Growing Kit Habitat | Redeem Voucher For Live Ladybug Larvae

My son loved this. Fun, easy to care for the lady bugs and didn’t cost a lot

great product

We have grown Insect Lore's caterpillars before but this was our first time with ladybugs. It was so cool to observe the larva transform into beetles! The children (ages 3-6) were very engaged with the process and learned so much along the way. We paired it with reference books and posters so we could all learn new vocabulary. The Ladybug Land Kit comes with everything you need including a voucher to get the larva. When it's time to release the ladybugs, the dome comes off for easy access. Our kit hatched about 15 ladybugs!

I was excited to purchase this for my kids to witness the life cycle of lady bugs. I also have an organic vegetable garden and was equally excited to release the adult lady bugs into it when they were adults. I never got to fully do either.....I found this kit when I was searching for "live lady bugs" to order as beneficial insects for my garden. I though this would be great. Based on the first two 5 star reviews from 2004 on this product I went ahead and ordered.- You have to pay $5 more to have the lady bug larvae shipped to you.... ( I wish this was in larger print on the product description page, not a big deal as I understand shipping live insects does cost money, just wish I had seen it before ordering)- Our first batch of larvae all arrived DOA. I emailed customer service and they told me to wait a week to make sure before contacting them back. They said sometimes the larvae do not move much and need time to acclimate. I wrote them back after a week as everything still was DOA.- The second batch arrived a few days later. The company does ship well and provided tracking and email confirmations which was nice. This time only half the contents of the shipping vial were DOA. You can clearly see the live ones moving around. I think the week wait was a little much. You should be able to discern viability in just 24-36 hrs. However, they do make you wait the required number of days.- We filled the dome food tray with the wet sponge and placed the larvae inside. Soon mold began to grow on the food sponge and larvae started dying. Within one week all the larvae were dead despite us cleaning out the mold and following the instructions to the letter!- It is a real heart breaking experience for the kids to watch the larvae not make it. We also don't like seeing that as well. I believe the habitat's design could be better improved upon. The larvae food, feeding, water sponge and air circulation seem to be the main factors that affected us.- I can only conclude that I would have been way better off just ordering larvae and putting them directly out in my garden. The kids could have visited the garden and we could have tried seeing them there. After spending $20 to end up with a cheap plastic habitat that will end up in the garbage and to watch 2 sets of lady bug larvae die, it was definitely not worth it!I think there are some major issues here..... I wish I could return this but by the time all of this has occurred it is now past the 30 return window.I hope this review helps and perhaps has saved some lady bug larvae lives..... Anything that involves live creatures should absolutely be well tested and continually monitored and updated as needed to ensure the best for the creatures and people involved. This is just not acceptable.

I bought this for my son's third birthday. He's already an avid entomologist. The larvae arrived just as expected already shedding its skin, which each one did multiple times. It was fascinating for my husband and me as well. The three of us found ourselves glued together watching these amazing creatures as the larvae shed it's final skin and entered the pupa stage. Several days after the fully-formed ladybugs emerged (they were yellow at first), we set them free into our back yard. They have a distinct appearance which is slightly different than the ladybugs we're accustomed to seeing around here. Therefore we have been able to easily identify them when we come across them in our yard.We received about 14 or 15 ladybug larvae and all survived to become ladybugs except for one, which I consider to be pretty impressive. The container was especially effective because my son was not able (or tempted) to manhandle to ladybugs, yet it was easy to keep the water filled with the specially designed lid and water tube. We had an excellent view of all the events taking place inside. I would recommend purchasing books to go along with this. We had four different simple books relying upon excellent photographs and easy-to-understand descriptions. This heightened my son's (and our) anticipation and helped us to better understand what was happening.I can honestly say that this has been well-worth the price we paid for it. Soon we're going to get a refill kit of ladybug larvae and begin anew.