You folks out East have been dealing with them longer than us in Illinois. Do the numbers of Japanese beetles ever level off. I swear it's been like a plague. Never saw them until '98 or so and they stressed and killed a few of my trees back then. They even ate trees that they weren't suppose to according to the experts.
As an experiment (in revenge) I attached those traps with the cones so they emptied into trashbags. Then I poured them into washtubs with detergent in it and drowned the little beggars. Used their dead bodies to fill low spots in the ground by the barn.
I don't live in that place anymore, got townified (pop ~2000, not quite citified). Now I just dig them out of my pool skimmer. ::) ::) ::)
The nice thing about those traps, if you didn't have japanese beetles before, they will attract them. Sometimes its best not to put up traps. Let the neighbors do it and attract your bugs.
I haven't seen Japanese beetles for a long time. When I first moved to my place, there was supposedly a high infestation. But, I noticed that the beetles like rose bushes more than they do garden plants. So, I didn't remove the multiflora rose, and the beetles stayed there amd weren't much of a problem. Sometimes nature works with you, sometimes it works against you.
last year we put up the traps, but the bags filled way too quick, so we started using the plastic groc. bags with the cardboard ring off of a roll of tape about 3/4 of the way up the bag to make the top narrow, I also sprayed the inside of the bag with wd 40 to make it slick.
this year we have not put out any bags yet, but we too are getting alot of them in the pool skimmmer. >:(
Traps? What traps? Are you talking about the mast little fellers that look like lady bugs?
We were still vacumnig them off the ceiling yet this spring. >:( They have absolutely ruined the past few falls. The swarms were so thick you couldn't even go outside.
Hey patty, go to google images and search jap beetles, all kinds of pics in there, they are kinda green and have a hard shell.
I coulda posted a pic, just lazy I guess :)
Numbers have been down in recent years. I have arranged traps to drop beetles into my pond. When the beetle population is high, you can't see them hit the water! You see the beetle drop into the funnel and then a splash below the discharge! Fish are there waiting.
Excellent use of them, Beweller. I didn't know fish would eat them. Seems that nothing else will, except starlings when they are still grubs.
Patty, I think you're talking about asian ladybugs, the orange ones. Crawl inside your walls and everything to winter over, then have the gall to BITE their landlord. Stinky too. You can google a ton of info about them too.
ooooops....uh, never mind! :D ::)