I know I will get yelled at, but this isnt the organic section. So try spraying with liquid sevin or dust. If your organic I hope I didnt disturb you or any else, if I did I'm so terribly Sorry!

They are cucumber beetles. I don't know how to control them. Try googling it or asking your local ag. ext. agent. They eat other plants besides cukes and you don't have to grow cukes to have them. I just happened to see them when I was looking up a bug I have.

Cucumber beetles are long, not round. I think Mexican bean beetles, a member of the ladybug family.

Will sevin kill the bees that are pollenating my canteloupes nearby?

Will sevin kill the bees that are pollenating my canteloupes nearby?

Of course, if they contact it before it degrades. Insecticides kill insects.

Dan

Without a picture, its not 100%, but you most likely have mexican bean beetles, I am sorry to say. I get these every year at my location, and there is nothing i can do to prevent it. The good news is, if you are diligent, your plants can survive. Your best bet, is to go out in the mid mornings, and late evenings when temps are cooler to find the beetles and squash them dead. Also, every day, turn over the leaves of your plants and look for the tiny yellow eggs they lay, ans well as the hairy yellow larvae that will be crawling and eating the undersides of the leaves. Squash all of those too. You can contain them, but you won't get rid of them. I just had to uproot 125 bean plants that have been producing for 2 months due to beetle damage.

The good news is that they don't hang around in late summer and i just planted a fresh 125 plants last week. I have never had problems with my fall crop of beans, but my spring summer crop get nailed each year. Good Luck.

I would suspect that you have bean leaf beetles. They have been particularly fierce this year in my area. They make round holes in the leaves while in contrast the Mexican bean beetles make a lacework of the leaf. Bean leaf beetles are hard to see as they drop off the leaf when you disturb it, but they do look like a slightly elongated, brownish ladybug.

I hand squished some, but basically ignored them. They are worse on new plants, but all my beans out grew the damage. I may cover my new bush beans until they are slightly larger.

The organic control seems to be hand picking, Rotenone, Pyrethrum or Neem.

These links have some good pictures (and have me thinking of planting alfalfa in the garden):

http://www.vegedge.umn.edu/vegpest/BLB.htm

http://www.extension.umn.edu/distribution/horticulture/M1185.html

Good luck,
Bellatrix

Here is a link that might be useful: Bean Leaf Beetle

Sorry about the wrong i.d.! I wasn't thinking about the shape.

This year the cucumber beetles left my melons completely alone (didn't plant any squashes or cukes this year), but attacked my beans with a vengeance! They looked absolutely awful. Finally, the beans started outgrowing the damage the beetles were doing, and now they are looking very good. From the outside. I generally plant beans very close together in blocks, so who knows what it looks like in their underworld; I just know that they are cranking out a lot of beans amongst a lot of green leaves. It's amazing what I get away with by not lifting a finger.

Thank you for the pics, Bellatrix. It is definitely the bean leaf beetle. I think do another planting this weekend, so I can see if I have luck with a later crop.
Hubby and I discussed this, and decided against insecticide, as the beans seem to be the only thing getting damaged. We finally have bees back this year, after my sevin disaster two years ago. It looks like I have potential for the best canteloupe crop I have ever had and I couldn't stand the thought of losing my little pollenators.

Diana - For the new crop, you may want to consider covering it with Remay for a while. Once the bean plants are larger, the beetles shouldn't be able to do as much damage.

Bellatrix

Thanks. Just putting the seed in the ground today. I only saw one yesterday while I was looking around in the garden. It almost looks like some of my plants are coming back to life.