They’re everywhere! Eating everything! I have to go out to my garden (what’s left of it) and pick them off with a rubber glove and flick them into a coffee can of water. And it never ENDS! They outnumber the stars in the sky. Our yard is aswarm with every kind of bird you can imagine (they go through birdseed like Lindsay Lohan goes through a baggie of coke) - why don’t some of those birds eat these disgusting beetles??? God! They’re like a Biblical plague.
We used to have them in our garden, too. I would dig up the larva and feed them to the ants (or inject them with bug spray, but that didn’t seem to do anything). When my Venus flytrap gets big enough, I know where I’m gonna put the suckers when I find them.
Have you tried those bag-a-bug things? I seem to recall that they work well.
Also, chickens love 'em. Maybe you could rent some chickens.
Japanese beetles are particularly insidious, because fairly early in the summer they lay their larvae underground. You can kill off the adult population, but next year you’re going to get just as many, if not more, because it’s almost impossible to eliminate the larvae/grubs.
The key is to be vigilant in late spring and early summer, and at the first sign of Japanese beetles, spray your garden liberally with a pesticide that’s designed to kill them. I found one that works for about six weeks, and it’s very effective.
The following year, you’ll have to repeat the process. After that, though, if you’ve gotten them early enough (before they had a chance to reproduce), your problem should be greatly diminished. If you ever give them a toehold, the population will take off again.
I think they’re pretty decent. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8Ku8WHPlX0
What insecticide are you using, Sauron? I spray with a pyrethrin derivative and the effect only lasts for about 4-5 days. A spray with Merit worked longer on first application, then the little bastards came roaring back within about a week after the second spraying.
I loathe these creatures, not just for their gluttonous appetites, but for their other revolting habits. They’re like the George Costanzas of the bug world, mating and eating simultaneously. And when you go to pick them off a plant, they stick their legs up in the air menacingly. Like that’s going to deter me from squashing or beheading them.
I believe it was a Bayer product, but I used the last of it earlier this year and I can’t double-check that. Could’ve been Spectracide Triazicide. It specified that it killed Japanese beetles on the container. It’s the first stuff I’ve ever used that kept them away after spraying; everything else had to be reapplied roughly every 72 hours. With this stuff, I spray once, late in the spring, and I don’t see Japanese beetles for the entire summer.
We have a climbing vine and a Japanese maple, both of which are magnets for Japanese beetles. About three years ago, I literally couldn’t use my grill (which was next to the climbing vine) because of the Japanese beetles flying around. Now, we’re largely beetle-free.
Another solution is to use a professional service to spray. The house I lived in when I was in Ohio used to be overrun by Japanese beetles, until we did that two years running. Now, they barely make a dent, and a light spraying early in the year takes care of the problem.
They are decimating a wild grapevine (and this is the first year we got grapes!) - the leaves are like transparent lace. Last year, they did a number on the wine grapes here in the Finger Lakes and actually threatened the wine industry…I remember when every lawn had a yellow-and-turquoise beetle trap on the fron lawn - until it was discovered they attracted many more bugs than could even fit in the traps! :(.
Take a drive through Rocky Mountain National Park to Steamboat springs, and then let us know how you feel about the** mountain pine borer.**
Yet another part of the plague! And let’s not forget the grossest of the gross - tent catepillars! :eek:
Damn Yoko!!!
Dude. It’s been, what, 30 years? Time to let it go.
- No.
Oh! That’s the little guy I keep seeing in my garden. It didn’t look like much of a threat though. My plants are mainly healthy. I suspect it is chomping on my hops, but the hops has plenty to chomp, it still looks strong. I will say that the map on wikipedia needs to be updated, I’m outside it’s range according to that map.
We have tons of other beetles around here though. As we were putting the garden together I was squishing the larve right and left. Will pesticides hurt my worms?
Has anybody tried Milky Spore?
Wouldn’t you just eat them?
When I was a kid, (and much less concerned about how evil it was to do things like this) I looooved those things. They’re really beautiful in a way, and they make a neat toy. We used to capture them, tie a string to one of their back legs and fly them around the yard like a little motorized kite.
Hours of fun!
salinqmind hit on the best way to stop the little fuckers. Plant some grape vines away from your garden and the colopterous invaders from Dai Nippon will eat those in preference to anything else.
I say this from experience. I have several wild grapevines to the west of my house and nearly every year, the Japanese beetles go after those and leave my garden, which is to the south of the house, alone.
Squash Vine borers are also a damn menace in Indiana, and it’s a pity they cannot be eliminated from the ecosystem.
I bet this is why they aren’t bothering me too much. I’m surounded by wild grapevines. The damned grapevines are more of a nuicance than the beetles.