Evil Japanese beetle! Knock it into a cup of soapy water immediately or he will summon a thousand of his friends to your garden!!!

They are an invasive species...watch out because the females bite....not really hard but enough to notice...if you have one, you will most likely have hundreds..we get them in our house...a few years ago our county had an infestation...they gather on window sills and often you will think they are dead but they are not. They are looking for warm places and will find them and stay all winter....suck them up with a dust buster and then empty into soapy water.....

geez.. if you never saw one before... i dont know where you have been ....

i ignore them ... they never really kill anything...

plagues ebb and flow over the years ... some years the populations are high.. others not ....

the best way to control them in your specific yard .... is to treat the lawn with the appropriate lawn chemical to disrupt them in the larval stage.. where they are know as grubs.. eating your lawns roots all up ... the beetle is beautiful.. compared to the grub .. lol ...

NEVER BUY A TRAP.... wrap your head around this .... there is a sex hormone that lures them to the trap ... put a trap in your yard.. and you will attract every one for a mile to your yard.... kinda counterproductive .... buy them for the neighbors downwind.. lol ...

been gardening for 35 years.. never been bitten by one...

good luck

ken

Well, I've never had them before. My yard and garden have always been self-regulating when others brown over and die. :D

*reads up on biological controls*

Last year we had literally thousands. I was knocking them off my pole beans into soapy water, some days more than 100. This year hasn't been nearly as bad. They have no natural predator in this country. Some birds will eat the grubs, but practically no one eats the beetles.

Treating your lawn is a good idea, but the beetles can fly from as far away as a mile or two (maybe more) so you won't eliminate them entirely. If you do kill the few scout beetles you may avoid an infestation. Or not. Unfortunately Japanese beetles are not something you can control with IPM unless you just don't plant what they eat. That list is pretty small, however!

Ken is right about the traps. My neighbors have them, maybe that's why I don't have as much trouble with the beetles this year?

There is no biological control for a Japanese Beetle adult, except maybe the bottom of your shoe. I know our county is on the quarantined list for them and the plant inspector, if he/she finds any on my nursery stock, well it flunks.

However, I do just like Ken. Pretty much ignore them, then say goodbye to my malva and hollyhock foliage, get ugly grape foliage, ugly coneflower foliage. You can treat your lawn with Milky spore, but you need to get everyone else around you to do the same thing.

I have seen skunks dig for the grubs. In fact, they do a better job of lifting up the top layer of sod than a sod cutter. But, it's easily just lain back down like a skin graft.

I wish the birds ate more of them!

Next-door-neighbor showed me her window boxes with holes eaten in leaves; while talking to her beetle landed on her and we looked at it. Pretty sure it's a Japanese beetle. Have had a lot of rain lately, lots of slugs, and we have Japanese beetle damage too. But I usually can live with the cycles as long as they don't decimate a plant completely or kill it.

Grackles, meadowlarks, starlings, cardinals, and catbirds--all predators of adult beetles. We have a very lively bird population in my yard--I encourage wildlife here especially birds...and I believe they are helping to keep this in check.

VERY grateful for Ken's advice NOT to buy traps--passed it along to my neighbor!

I am a completely organic gardener and prefer to companion plant and encourage wildlife in my gardens to keep things in balance ...

Some useful links follow...

http://www.ivyhall.district96.k12.il.us/4TH/KKHP/1INSECTS/japbeetle.html

http://www.entomology.wisc.edu/mbcn/fea508.html

Yes, do not buy or put in those Japanes Beetle "traps". They were developed many years ago to attract the beetles so studies of them could be made, population studies and the "traps" have a pheromone, an odor, that tells a male beetle that a female beetle that is ready to mate is there so the males come pouring in. Then the males exude a pheromone that tells the female beetles that they are there which attracts the females, bringing ever more of those Japanese Beetles into your yard and garden.
Sprinkling the Milky Spore Disease, "Bacillus popillae", around your yard can help reduce populations but may not do much about the adults that come in from elsewhere, although if everyone would spread that around the populations would be reduced.
Knocking the adults into a bucket of soapy water (the soap in the water keeps them from flying back out) is a good tool, and spraying them with an insecticidal soap can be another tool as can be Neem Oil sprays and, moving up the toxic chemical chain, so can pyrethrin based sprays and dusts.

The JB's this year are killing me! I spent days picking them off by the dozens, still they come. they devoured my plum and are set now on my Birch tree. I'm so tired of these things. I was convinced I was going to use Milky Spore this year, but from what I'm reading it will be costly with my large yard and won't help if neighboring properties are not doing it as well.Someone on another forum suggested a Bayer product. I guess you pour this stuff into the soil around the tree/plant that is being devoured and the JB's will leave it alone. I hate to use something so strong. Next year we will be having a large summer party at our home right about the time they are going to be invading, if I don't do something about them before then. Has anyone else successfully gotten rid of these pests? At least to the point where their not getting in my hair as I'm walking through my yard? All advice is welcome.

In Wisconsin here and the Jap beetles appeared in full force last weekend. I had to cut down a birch tree, nothing left but a few twigs and firewood. They were so thick on the ferns in the backyard, literally hundreds of them! I sprayed ferns,grapes and flowers last Sat with Bonide Eight, mixed with water in a tank sprayer. By Sunday all beetles were gone "poof"! I have been checking all week, and hand picked maybe 5 in total. I hate using chemicals, but those beetles were doing some serious damsge!