The proudest, most stressful, arguably most significant work of Bernarr Kumashiro’s 44-year career as an entomologist with the Department of Agriculture hinged on the survival of a most unlikely set of heroes.

“Thirty-three ladybugs,” Kumashiro said, chuckling. “I don’t know how I remember that. I guess because they were so important.”

It was the early 1980s, and the islands were beset by a massive infestation of spiraling whitefly, a ravenous insect whose most obvious and alarming impact was the depositing of white, waxy material on leaves and a sticky excrement that grew sootlike mold.

“There was a lot of pressure on us to do something,” Kumashiro said. “People were calling their legislators. I couldn’t sleep at night.”

Eventually, an entomologist in the department identified a ladybug in Trinidad that was the little nuisance’s natural enemy.

Kumashiro was working in the department’s insectary at the time and was charged with growing the near-microscopic ladybug larvae. But they were covered with a flocculent, or fluffy substance.

“I was nervous because I couldn’t see them,” he said. “Their little hairs picked up the flocculence and camouflaged them. Then one day I was looking through the microscope and I saw the flocculence moving, which told me that the larvae were underneath.”

The ladybugs were released along with a parasite that also preys on whiteflies. Soon enough the whiteflies were under control, and Hawaii’s greenery was once again green.

The case stands out among the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of projects that Kumashiro has quietly undertaken. Most often, his work and that of his tiny department goes unnoticed, even as their long record of successes helps to protect Hawaii’s fragile ecosystem.

Kumashiro started with the department in 1971, soon after he graduated from the University of Hawaii with a degree in biology. He spent his first 14 years in the insectary and the last 30 doing taxonomy, an exacting science that requires a rare combination of patience, expertise and intuition.

Working amid canyons of towering cabinets containing some 160,000 insect samples, breathing air heavy with the odor of Naphthalene, Kumashiro devoted countless hours identifying all manner of mysterious insects for farmers, agriculture inspectors and anyone else who might call.

For Kumashiro there is magic in the microscope.

“It’s a different world,” he said. “People think you have to go far into space or deep under the ocean to see such things, but it’s right here. Humans can’t replicate what I see under the microscope — the divine sculpture of an insect.”

Kumashiro retired last week. There was little fanfare, but the unanimous respect and admiration expressed by his colleagues, co-workers and regular callers was enough.

“I’ve been very lucky.”

Reach Michael Tsai at mtsai@staradvertiser.com.