Bend-area family enjoys the ladybug business

A family in Central Oregon is in the business of ladybugs. Northwest Beneficials has been working with ladybugs for four generations.

Chris Morris is a sales manager for Northwest Beneficials, his daughter Holly Ford is the company’s owner and his son Jim Morris also works for the company, based in Deschutes River Woods, south of Bend.

Morris has been working with ladybugs since the 1960s.

“I found some ladybugs out in the woods accidentally, because I was out being a typical 11- or 12 year-old,” Morris said Thursday.

Morris’ father knew the value of the bugs — and soon, Morris did too.

“I thought, ‘This is fantastic. I can earn a bicycle.’ So that was my big goal. Collecting ladybugs was simply to buy a bicycle at Western Auto and pay for it myself,” Morris said.

Fifty years later, the business is four generations deep.

“My father, my grandfather, my aunt and uncle, my cousins, my sister collects for me,” Morris said.

Morris’ kids are all involved in the business too.

Holly Ford said, “So I grew up doing that. I helped my family, worked out in our bug building — we called it the ‘bug barn’ when I was a kid.”

“I love it,” Ford said. “I’m so happy that my children can grow up doing the same thing that I did, and having the closest of family that I did.”

The Central Oregon business is rare because it sells ladybugs wholesale and collects ladybugs too, which is not an easy task.

Ladybug beds are often hidden deep in the forest and may take days to find, if they’re found at all.

“I love doing it,” Morris said. “It is literally like a treasure hunt. Every day, you have a very simple purpose. We’re going to get out and get as many ladybugs as we can, as quickly as we can.”

“Lots of times, we go out, and it’s hot, and the bugs are flying around,” Morris said. “And you disturb them, and they’re climbing on you and in your clothes and in your eyes, nose and in your mouth. And it’s crazy to even imagine millions of ladybugs flying through the air.”

One gallon of ladybugs has about 72,000 ladybugs in it. A ladybug hunt can yield anywhere from one to 100 gallons.

The purpose of gathering and selling all those bugs is for pest control.

“They eat aphids, spider mites and all sorts of pest eggs off of live plants,” Morris said. “We prevent the use of thousands of gallons of chemical pesticides every year because people choose to use our organic methods, rather than chemicals.”

Plus, according to this ladybug-loving family, ladybugs are just fun to have around.

“If you get them over here and smell the ladybugs, they have a very particular scent. Some people think it’s bad. I think it’s just ladybugs,” Morris said.

Northwest Beneficials collects its ladybugs from across the Pacific Northwest. The company also sells praying mantises and nematodes.

For more information on the company, you can visit its Website at http://www.nwbeneficials.com/ or its Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Northwest-Beneficials-LLC-1004913126211548/