I've read more than a few books/articles on bugs, and bugs, like it or not, will survive. We may go, the planet may toss us off, but insects will in the long haul survive, and thrive. It's a losing battle, at least the way I see things. I flick off JBs when I see them, but realize full well it's pointless. The only one's winning here are the folks who market ways to get rid of JBs.

Last week a neighbor set up a beetle trap in his front yard. At about the same time, I noticed a decline in the number of beetles I have had.

Today, I picked about 5 off one rose and 1 off a second rose. Not bad when there are 33 rose bushes.

I was getting them on about 10 of the 33 rose bushes.

sween, do not suppose that I am hoping to wipe out the Japanese beetle, just to minimize the damage to my plants. I guarantee you that my efforts have reduced the amount of damage in my yard.

Blueheron, that is exactly my concern about the traps. Last evening there were still a lot on my rhubarb, but the raspberries and elderberries were back to normal.

Alex

we have had very few so far,nothing like last year! Took a grape vine out in the spring that was a magnet for them so I think that made the difference. We hand pick the miserable creatures and drown them in soapy water. I don't think we've even found 12 yet this season, only 2 today! Now if I could only make the cucuumber beetles disappear I'd be happy!(Butler county)

I was away for 6 days, and when I got home the number of japanese beetles had increased. After two days of knocking them into a jar of soapy water, the numbers have dropped. So, I agree that going after them by hand does help. I feed them to my husband's chickens, who consider them a gourmet treat! At last, a good use for JBs!
Anita

I didn't pick the devil beetles yesterday due to other projects. I didn't get to picking until early afternoon today. Also, my bushes are reblooming now.

I had a large amount of devil beetles on the bushes today. I have to pick them at about 10:30 am and cut any available flowers for vases at that time also. If I do that, I have fewer devil beetles.

I'm bakin' a large batch of devil beetles in the beetle bag today.

I have been picking them and feeding them to the frogs in the garden ponds. Last night I must have fed them 50 or 60's of the little devils..... The funny thing is now the frogs all come to the side of the pond when they see me coming, I think they are jockeying for position!

It must be fun watching the froggies swallow the devil beetles.

I can only imagine the commotion in my black plastic beetle bag as it bakes beetles in the sun. One thing I know, nothing crawls or flies out of the devil beetle bag at the end of the day.

Lynn,
That must be a site to see!
Take your camera out next "feeding time"!

Honestly, I have never seen so many beetles as I have lately! They are everywhere!

It would be nice to be able to pick them off my plants and trees but my arm doesn't go far enough, nor do I have enough time. Last week I had over ten pounds (12 bags) of dead beetles for the garbage from two traps. This is in addition to spraying with Sevin for my cherry trees and grapes. They were even into the mimosa and cypress trees. This fall I will treat the lawn with milky spore. I have a pond to worry about, however and I have to be careful using pesticides.

I was at first cleaning out the trap bags by dumping the beetles nightly into an old spackling bucket filled with soapy water. Hate to waste a good bag. The problem then was what to do with the dead beetles and the brown water. I fear many had been munching on Sevin laced leaves or got partially soaked with Isotox. One time I flushed them. Not good. Then I dug a hole but was afraid the females might be egg laden. I now throw out the bags after letting them sit on the driveway for a few days to make sure they're real dead!

I'm running out of them and the frogs are starting to rebel....are we about thru with beetle season?

I have traps and have Sevin-ed them. I hang the traps in Paulownia trees (which they don't eat, unfortunately), and empty them in a 5-gal bucket every night, then walk into the corn field and spread them. The nightly haul is 2+ gals. Every night, night after night. 2 of the traps are completely full every night for the past week. I have a row of Filberts that are almost defoliated, with many of the leaves having 6 or more beetles on them. If one shakes a tree, the sky is filled with them, as thick as a swarm of bees. Tonight I moved one trap closer to those trees, figuring that there can't be many more that can be attracted. In all my years of living here, I have never seen them even 1/2 this bad. This is the first year since 1989 that I've sprayed. They are so bad that the Smartweed in the garden (a favorite food) doesn't have to be pulled, the leaves have been so thoroughly skeletonized that the plant is collapsing and rotting in this heat and humidity. (We had 9 days in a row where the showers passed through, then 2 days without rain, and rain again this evening.) I certainly hope the peak has passed. On the up side, the fireflies were also so numerous that nighttime walks meant constant pelting by poorly navigating, lust-crazed bugs. I'd rather have the lightning bugs.

It's a shame that so many people create gardens which attract wildlife (insects & others) and then use toxic chemicals which harm &/or destroy most of the wildlife. Granted, some of the wildlife is non-native, but toxins do not limit themselves to non-natives.

I too pick off JBs into soapy water and that has helped my purple coneflowers & other plants in my garden. My garden doesn't have the volume of JBs that other people seem to get, but it has some. I don't use any chemicals.

The soapy water tip was a tip I picked up from these forums.

"It's a shame that so many people create gardens which attract wildlife (insects & others) and then use toxic chemicals which harm &/or destroy most of the wildlife."

Sweetie, I've been gardening for more than 40 yrs. A post like that that follows mine deserves a reply. I'll try to play nice.

Spraying with Sevin is about as gentle as it can get. A timed spray at a still dusk on the Filberts is hardly coating the Earth with a toxic chemical. Do you buy your food from a big chain? Then thanks to chemicals potatoes are 10 cents/lb and strawberries from California are 2.99 a quart. Is your driveway paved? The oils washing from that are longer lasting and equally toxic to life. The impervious surface also robs the aquifer of some water and increases runnoff of the warm water after a thunderstorm. I could continue, but you can get my drift.

Yes, I have a garden. No, it is not only for wildlife. Otherwise I would not have planted some of the non-native plants that I have. I watch those funny green and yellow caterpillars eat the dill, but there is always extra. I have pipevine caterpillars that shred the leaves on the Aristolochia, but they don't eat too many. The tomato hornworms? We let them eat so that we can have the moth for pollination in the fall. My pawpaw's leaves have a critter that eats some, but the tree is still lush beyond what an artist could paint. One of the Liriodendron has Magnolia scale pretty bad, but in the winter I can go there and watch Chick-a-dees and Nuthatches. So we don't even want to sanitize the place. And the species we have here include one endangered turtle (Bog Turtle), at least 4 species of snakes and who knows how many species of birds. Almost every bush has one bird's nest (some have more than one, pictures upon request), and we've planted over 100 species of trees and shrubs to encourage that. My fish in the pond are preyed upon by Herons and Night Jars, Kingfishers and Snapping Turtles. They gotta eat too. (The red fish were too gaudy anyways.)

For those with a few trees, picking beetles is fine. I have 15 Corylus trees (15ft tall) with a heavy crop of nuts, and without leaves to fill those nuts, the deer and rodents will have to find something else to eat (and then they get into trouble). I won't get to fill my 5-gallon bucket in Sept. if the trees make blanks (empty nuts). My grapes leaves are all but gone, so the grapes will be puny, the Dahlias are so full of beetles that I don't dare bring any flowers to work this year. They ate the Pussy Willow to the bare branches, the Crabapples have a carpet of fallen leaf shreds underneath and even my pumpkin blossoms are eaten more by Japanese beetles than by the cucumber beetles (the usual culprit). My American Chestnut (C. dentata) is almost bare, ditto the 2 Betula papyrifera and the B. nigra. So it's not like I took out the flamethrower at the first sign of a damaged leaf.

Maybe your timing was co-incidental, but for the life of me, I cannot understand why somebody who has no knowledge of the situation would post a condemnation of spraying right after somebody has mentioned spraying for the plague that we have. Please understand that although my tone may read angry, it isn't at all. Exasperated, I admit. A teachable moment, I think so. Destroying most of the wildlife? Not by a long shot.

I ran out of picking fingers. I have so many devil beetles here I cannot keep up with them. I'm letting them eat the rose blooms to keep them from eating the foliage.

Death to devil beetles.

I am feeding a devil wasp's nest some Ortho. They had it last night for dinner and this morning for breakfast. I have more for them too if they are not full.

Many deaths to devil wasps that sting tired old gardeners.

My post was not directed at you, it was about the world in general. And please don't assume that I have "no knowledge." Thanks.