I bought this item for my kindergarten class. We watched the larvae crawl around for a few days, but they ate all the food they came with on the first day. I started to worry they would starve, so I fed them aphids until they went into the pupae phase. I got about 10 ladybugs, and only 4 of them survived to become adult ladybugs, but the kids were really excited when they finally came out. They look a little different than regular red ladybugs, but you can still tell that's what they are. The kids enjoyed watching them, and it made for a great science experiment in the classroom. I would highly recommend this product to anyone teaching small children. You do have to be careful not to knock the lid off. I had several escapees because my children kept bumping the lid, and they were able to crawl out from under it.

My students loved watching the cycle of the ladybug. I will use this in my classroom again!

We loved this gift. Our four-year-old twin girl received it as a gift. We filled out the egg order form in her own name, so she was super excited when the package arrived in the mail with her own name on it. She would call me at work to tell me what the ladybugs larvae were doing, and was ecstatic the day we released the mature ladybugs into our backyard garden.

The ladybug land is really fun, you should get it too. I had so much fun when I watched the ladybugs grow.

Unlike the excellent butterfly garden, this was a so-so gift for my nieces. Ladybugs, some never hatched, rest were too small for easy viewing. Will try an "ant farm" this year using the blue gel NASA media that replaces the old dirt farms that I had as a kid.

They make it look much bigger in the picture and was really surprised when I opened the box. Guess I should have read the dimensions.

This was so much fun and so educational we had the best time checking them every day. And even when it was time to let the lady bugs go free it was a fun day. Now everytime we see a ladybug my daughter says thats one of my ladybugs coming to see me. I reccomend this for any child.

This is simply an awesome toy! My 5 year old self-proclaimed "Bug Expert" thoroughly enjoyed our ladybug experience. I must say, I found it fascinating myself.

Every single ladybug survived to adulthood, and is happily eating aphids in my garden now.

We did have one bit of excitement when someone picked it up by the lid and we discovered my little tape tabs were insufficient. Ladybugs ended up all over the kitchen. We rounded them all up and all ended well, but it was quite a scene. I would strongly suggest securely taping the lid on before putting the ladybugs in. It just sits on the base, there is no locking mechanism.

I bought this for my niece for her birthday. I was disappointed to find out when the package was delivered that they don't send the ladybug larva to Oregon. There wasn't anything indicating that the ladybug larva couldn't be sent to certain states.

We received 16 larva eaxcatly when we requested them and all have survived as far as we can tell. My 6 year old and my 3 year old loved watching the larva walk around and now love the pink ladybugs. It was particularly interesting for them because we had a few larva, a few pupa and a few adult ladybugs all at the same time. I even brought this in to my daughter's 1st grade class and had a mini-lesson with the kids. The teacher says they're still talking about it. This is well worth the money.

I bought this for my niece, Alex, in 2004 when she was three. She had just dressed up as a ladybug for Halloween and I thought it would make a fun project to work on in the afternoons with her grandparents.

The day the toy arrived, Alex was ecstatic, however, first the larvae would have to be ordered. Her ecstasy subsided over the period of SIX WEEKS that it took for the larvae to arrive.

Once the larvae arrived, Alex's grandparents followed the directions perfectly. No matter. The larvae sprouted, stumbled around Ladybug Land for a couple of days, then died.

The habitat was adorable. The bugs just didn't want to live there.

It was a disappointment for everyone, though, at times like this, we should look to the wisdom of children.

Alex: "All of them died but at least we still have their house."

I got this for my 3 yr old's birthday after our tremendous luck with the butterflies. (another 5 stars). well the lady bugs came out of their cocoons four days ago and are munching raisens and runnning around the pavillion. she LOVES them. we only ended up with 6 live ladybugs but that's plenty for her. she runs to check them every morning and sit and watches them for long periods of time (for a 3-yr-old). i am very happy with this product and will certainly get more ladies.

We were so excited to try this out with our little boy, but it was not what we expected. The only exciting day of insect watching came the day that the shipment arrived from Insect Lore - the ladybug larvae moved around a lot for about a day, then hid for almost 5 days while they turned into ladybugs. Once they were ladybugs, they just sat around and didn't do anything (they only seemed to move when we weren't looking at them). Then they died. Wow, what a letdown. Next time, we'll go with an old-fashioned ant farm!

Bought this for my son's 5th birthday since he loves Ladybugs. Sent of for the larvae two weeks before his birthday and it arrived on his birthday. All the larvae arrived alive. They changed to pupa in two days and are now ladybugs. He is constantly watching his ladybugs. He has a little brother (1 1/2) who also likes the ladybug land and has dropped it many times. It has no cracks and the bugs do not seemed fazed so I would say it is very durable.

Larvae arrived with all but one dead. After a little while, it died too. Contacted the company and they responded very quickly. They also sent a new batch of ladybug larvae very quickly. The only problem is that these arrived dead too. All of them.
Emailed the company several times back and forth and finally came to a resolution. They sent Painted Lady "butterfly culture" aka tiny caterpillars.
As of June 12, 2005, the five sent are all alive. Hopefully, we will finally get to watch nature at work. All we've seen so far is the grim reaper.
So, in order, it's dead ladybug larvae; dead ladybug larvae; help from customer service;live caterpillars.
Now,all we have to do is figure out what to do with our empty ladybug land.

Our ladybug larvae seemed to prefer to eat each other rather than the food which came with our shipment of ladybugs. It was rather gruesome to watch, so we let the larvae loose outside. The company representative we spoke with had no explanation for the phenomenon, but was willing to ship us another package of ladybugs free of charge. I don't think we can handle watching a repeat of the cannibalism.

The new larvae behaved themselves (i.e., they didn't eat each other). They grew to maturity and we relaeased them into the backyard. I guess ladybugs, like love, can be better the second time around.

I gave this to my 2nd grader for Christmas. It took a while for the larvae to arrive due to "unexpected need" -- how does that happen when the same company sells the land and ships the ladybugs? But once the tube of larvae arrived the land did exactly what it promised. My kids loved watching as the larvae became pupae attached to the dome, then hatched as ladybugs. We kept them in the dome for a couple of weeks (until after the last frost) then released them on our rose bushes. Ten minutes later the kids were begging to order more larvae!

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.

My 3-year old absolutely LOVES ladybugs, and this item was a big hit with her. We kept it on the kitchen counter, near where we eat, and the ladybugs and their activities were always a popular dinner conversation topic! When the weather turned warm enough, we released the ladybugs in our yard and watched each and every one of them spread their wings and fly away. I am sure we will order additional larvae and do it all over again. The product is sturdy (we just had to remind our daughter not to jostle or try to lift the dome) and makes it easy to achieve successful results. A very fun and experience for the entire family!!

My 4 year old daughter is a ladybug nut. We got this for Christmas and sent away for our larvae which come in a tube in the mail with all the food they need. Even the adults were fascinated watching the larvae turn to pupa and then to ladybugs. The customer service was very helpful when we called because our bugs stopped doing anything. They told us the bugs were "dormant" because it was too cold in my daughters room. We moved them to a warmer spot and within 30 minutes had ladybugs!! Definitely worth the cost. It is clean and sturdy thank goodness! Although the inside does get slightly messy (of course). We loved it.