Friend of ours ate one by accident, he said it was VERY Spicy
They're Back - Brown Marmorated Stink Bugs Fall 2012
Jen, having one show up in my food has been my biggest fear of dealing with these stinkers. I have found way too many in close vicinity of my kitchen stove, so I am hyper vigilant about checking my food before it goes in to my mouth. I have read of others who have had the opportunity to taste them too and gag at the thought of it. Last week we had a bird give quite an interesting show as he attacked and ate stink bugs from the gutters running along the house. Birds must love them.
The past few days we seem to have an invasion of lady bugs visiting our place. I co-exist much better with lady bugs than I do stink bugs. I am now finding a lot more lady bugs than stink bugs, and that suits me just fine.
Happy hunting all.
Ruby
He was reading and not paying attention it landed on a celery stick
YIKES~!!!!! Poor guy!!! No envy from me at all!!!
Ruby
I definitely vote "neither" as wasp/bee sting in roof of mouth very bad and wasp can sting repeatedly(ask me how I know).
In many parts of the world bugs and insects are used as food and a source for protein. Came across this article on how stink bugs are collected and prepared (stink removed) for consumption. I'm not promoting eating SB s, but this article opened my eyes to how a population of people has learned to use resources around them to their benefit and has learned much as we are trying to do now, the places and life cycle changes and anatomy of these bugs and live in some sort of give and take balance with them or as Ruby says,'coexist' ....
http://www.scienceinafrica.co.za/2003/october/stinkbug.htm
oh yeah yellow jackets on soda cans...YIKES
Glad I don't drink soda anymore!
How about this guy...... You are not supposed to be in the house!!!
Good golly Molly.......now I have heard everything!!! Please remind me to not accept any dinner invitations from any African neighbors. Don't want to chance trying these bugs.
Yesterday afternoon I decided to count the bugs I captured. After about one hour and 97 bugs later I quit for the day. Let me remind you that this is definitely not one of the more populated days here. If I caught 97 and the screens on the porch were basically clear, it means that some of the days I must have had in the neighborhood of five hundred plus on those days. That was the days when I was still spraying my eleven dollar a can killer. I have since decided that I will not be wasting my money on the spray and will suck it up and have orange tinted finger tips. I usually don latex gloves and use a napkin, tissue or paper towel to handle these things which promptly go in to the sudsy water bottle.
Am off to start my first trip of the day bug hunting. I find myself at times when trying to capture the ones that are higher than my head, standing there with mouth agape and then shudder and close it quickly in fear of one of them falling in to my mouth. A trip to a mental ward will be due if that happens. Along those lines.....an interesting story that I can only believe would send me to a psych ward is the treatment my former neighbor had when she had some breast surgery done some years back. She wasn't healing as quickly as the doctors wanted, and the treatment was at several intervals a day during her hospital stay to have leeches attached to the breast in order for them to suckle and create new blood vessels. How she sleeps at night after that I experience, I will never know. She is a better man than me.
Ruby
Cross posted with Jen. Jen, I have been finding a fair amount of spiders that seem to be about the same size as your picture shows. Thankfully, not indoors though. Yikes....I don't like spiders and snakes.......
Ruby
Ruby--
Have you thought of walking around with one of those little Car vacs in hand?
At least near your house where an electric cord would reach. Or--are there any of these that run on batteries?
Suck them up--empty them in a zip-loc bag and put it in your freezer. Done!
Leaches are an ancient form of treatment. I believe they were mostly used to reduce swelling around
wounds. I will stand corrected here. Should Google it..........
Gita
Ruby, that is definitely more than I have encountered so far.
In another article called "Ask the Exterminator" on control of stink bugs around the home, the comments after the article are full of reports from homeowners who are inundated with these and their coping methods from vacuuming to heavy duty sprays which kill everything in sight to Bugzooka, to homemade deterrent sprays made with vicks vapor rub!
http://www.asktheexterminator.com/Household_Pests/How_to_Get_Rid_of_Stink_Bugs.shtml
Thank goodness your porch is screened. Cool night followed by warm sunny day seems to bring them out looking for winter shelter. I applaud you for your vigilence. Glad to share the earth with others who make their ocd/perfectionism work for them and keep doing their stink bug yoga with their mouths closed!
My small wet/dry vac is at the ready to suck up all I see and I can reach further than a hand held. Plus, because I have an inch of soapy water in the canister, they are sucked up and killed at same time!
Ruby -- I am just stunned by how many you are seeing. You must be aghast. How awful!
As for the hand held vacuums that I own.....two very expensive Dysons that are used to suck dog hair off of furniture, I wouldn't dare. I have mistakenly sucked up a couple in the past and the odor is horrible. For several weeks John's shop vac sat on the porch waiting for me to use, which I never did. I have become so proficient at getting these bugs in a bottle that the vacuum was never needed and has since returned to his garage where John and my grandson play vacuum up the stink bugs daily. The garage is off limits to me because he knows I will throw a fit due to his lack of organizational skills and pure apathy about his surroundings. He even had the decency to put up a tall fence so I wouldn't have to look at the outside of it either. Out of sight, out mind. Thankfully.
Devon, yesterdays count on the bugs were 156. Amazing, and I expect more today when the temperatures are supposed to be in the low eighties.
Judy, love the articles you supply here. All very interesting. They don't suggest sucking them up either due to the reason I stated above. One of the really amazing things about these critters are that my son who lives about 20 miles away has had very little problem with them. In the past few years they have probably seen less than twenty of them total at their place. I just say that they are indeed lucky on that account.
In years past, apples and peaches were the main stay of Crozet and we still have quite a few of each orchards on all sides. I grew up spending hours upon end at a small peach orchard that my dad owned. Today that small tract still has a very few trees but two homes on the acreage now and yet another building lot for sale. That may be one of the reasons that the bugs are so highly populated in these parts.
Since the weekend, the number of Lady Bugs arriving are giving the stink bugs a real run for their money. It has been quite a few years since we have seen so many of the Lady Bugs. I try to allow them to live but many are getting squashed under foot I am afraid. Anyway......off to bug hunt in a bit. You folks count your lucky stars that you don't live here.
Yesterdays catch of the offenders was 156. Yeegads!!!!!!!!!
Ruby
Ruby---
You must be the only one that actually counts how many bugs you caught each day....:o)
That must take quite a while---
lol Gita
I count mine, too! What takes me so much time is when I lose count and have to start over!
The worst is when I wonder who? left the little shop vac sitting out on the steps again!
For the orchards and fruit trees of Cruzet it's 157 x 20 to 30 eggs that won't be laid and turn into fruit destroying adults next year! Good for Ruby and good for farmers and orchardists.
Hopefully major storm Sandy with high winds and heavy rains will wipe out any remaining stinkers that haven't already found shelter.
Have started a hurricane watch thread here
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1285729/
Ruby, don't spare those lady bugs. The ones that seek shelter in large numbers in our homes aren't the "real" lady bugs that we like in our gardens... they are "fake" foreign lady bugs, and they can be a real problem inside. Actually, I think they are Asian lady beetles... and while they do eat aphids, they don't seem to eat the ones that cause problems in our gardens & orchards. I'm pretty sure you can vacuum them up with no repercussions. You can stick a nylon stocking inside the vac. tube if you want to bag/trap them.
"She is a better man than me. " I love that comment!
Yes leeches were used and still are (rarely?) One thing they do is suck out extra 'leaked' blood so it doesn't collect where it isn't supposed to 'be' and cause problems.
Re eating SBs- author Gary Paulsen wrote ,and others surely have thought too- "What you are willing to eat is usually determined by how hungry you are." or words to that effect.
Last year or the year before- someone around DG linked to a guy who had made a trap from a large soda bottle, a small light (lawn ornament LED?) and used it in his attic.
I think I read about orchards testing traps made with bright yellow plastic. THis would have been a great topic for me to look into two weeks ago and write about.
Sally,
I believe the yellow traps set up in orchards and fields are traps mainly used to measure infestation levels. This year Maryland and several other states were granted special permission for commercial growers and orchardists to use several chemical insecticides on a carefully timed and rotational basis to decrease the stink bug damage and financial loss from same. I expect that summaries of effectiveness and crop loss damage to be available in several weeks as apple harvest winds up.
Also. funding for continuing stinkbug research is held up in yet to be passed Farm Bill.
I think I should write some Dave's articles!! Does it pay well? lol Love the Paulsen quote. My daughter thinks I would be a great "Survivor" contestant!
coleup- look for dmail
Thanks for the reminder on Dmail....seems I rarely check for anything new in my inbox! My bad.
And, yes, I am looking forward to our visit at your house with Jill et al on Friday Nov 2. May have delivered my 3 Millionth newspaper by then!
But who's counting?!!!
Judy--
Is there anything you, or anyone else, want from me? I will be going to Sally's as well.
I should cut back all my Brugs--but the Dr. S. is just too big to hurry with that.
If she blows into pieces--it will save me some time....:o)
Might do the pink NOID. There is nothing but bare branches on this one....
Which direction will the winds be coming from? The East????
Gita
Totally think you should write articles, Judy!!!!!
Also totally think you would make a great 'Survivor' contestant.
I can't imagine collecting as many SBs as dear Ruby.
Hi folks - had to miss a day of collecting bugs status. I didn't think to count them until just this week and I have been amazed by the number I have collected. John said that some of you may indeed find as many as I do, but that nonr of you are as silly as I am with spending hours a day doing it. Not much goes on during the fall season on the hillside. hahaha Has been fun, though smelly at times.
Thanks Jill for the tip on the Lady Bugs. They really are becoming the bigger nuisance now. They are easier for two year old Isaac to catch than the stink bugs are, so he has been destroying them and feeling really proud of doing so. I will now allow him to capture them to his hearts desire.
The other day when I predicted a larger mass than usual due to the higher temperatures, I was mistaken. On Thursday, my birthday I caught 121 compared to 157 the day before. Much disappointment yesterday when the grand total for the day was only 23. Yep, those boogers sensed the storm that is coming and have taken shelter it seems. Cole, let's hope that the reports we are hearing regarding Sandy are exaggerated and we won't have a repeat of damage we had in July. Oh as for keeping up with the number of bugs collected, I have an index card and the times I made my trip around the grounds and how many were caught....all to be totalled at the end of the day.
Hope that everyone is enjoying the quiet before the storm.....
Ruby
I suppose people like Ruby and Coleup have way more Sting Bugs than others--
as you both live in wooded areas. So does Teri. How many have you caught?
Greenthumb--how are you doing in this respect?
I can say that the total I have seen (and disposed of) are about.......8.
I am sure there will be a few more.....
Gita
Saturday October 27, 2012 count was a total of ten bugs. That is more like it.
Ruby
phew!
I sure hope somebody can devise a cheap effective trap that could help you out.
I wish there weren't a need to a cheap effective way to get rid of them......nah.......I have now grown accustomed to them. Can't say that for the previous two or three years though. I just really grew tired of spending money trying to rid the place of them. I have really done a good job of getting rid of what would have to amount to the thousands in the last month or so. Thanks for the thoughts though Sally.
Ruby
You also got rid of ten thousands of their future offspring! That thought keeps me going in my small efforts on these and other garden pests.
I suppose you are right Sally. That is a great way to think of it. John has been commenting that I am seeing less because I am getting rid of quite a few of them. I only wish that I had done this sooner, but it has taken me this long to get over my disgust of them and actually touch them. When things start affecting my pocket book, I look for other solutions. These things do not die in freezing temperatures either. A couple of years ago when sorting through items that had been packed in my storage shed, during the months of January and February, I would find live bugs in many of the containers.
Today is day two of no stink bug hunting for me. Too windy and I might blow off the hillside.
Ruby
ROFL, sudden image of Ruby wearing suction-cup boots, determinedly marching toward a group of windblown stinkbugs, jar of soapy water at the ready...
We've got some here this fall, but not in droves as they've been in the past.
Just a reminder -- it's also time to be setting mouse traps; don't let them set up housekeeping for the winter!
Heehee. Already gotten two of them. Hopefully that's all.
Thankfully don't seem to have a mice problem in the house, but I have definitely seen evidence of them using my storage shed as their winter homes in the past. I hate to kill them, but would prefer that over the damage they can sometimes do.
Ruby
I'll join you all in declaring my hatred and war on stink bugs - UGH. Living in the woods, I seem to have them on a large scale. Don't see as many as I did two years ago when I came home from work to kill hundreds every day, now it is about 20 a day - a big improvement, but still... Along with the live ones, I find the dead corpses and/or three little droplets of what is either blood or stink serum in every conceivable place. It is so aggravating. I don't even hesitate now to just pick them up bare handed and flush them down the toilet.
As for mice, about this time every year I'll find evidence of a few in the house. Funny story, well, I think it is funny, I'll leave you to judge for yourself. My cousin Judy and her daughter were visiting from Pittsburgh a few years ago. We were sitting around the table after a very nice breakfast, and cousin Judy got up to put her dirty dishes in the dishwasher. I have to give her credit, she didn't scream or get over emotional in any way, as she calmly shut the dishwasher door and declared that there was a mouse in there. Mike got up, called Ashley (our American Eskimo dog), opened up the dishwasher door, and said "Ashley, get the mouse!". In the blink of an eye, Ashley lunged her head in the dishwasher, caught the mouse, and went trotting over to the kitchen door to be let out with that mouse tail hanging out of the side of her mouth. Like I said, it happened so fast. Cousin Judy and her daughter Lisa had the most amazed, shocked expressions on their faces. I think they were more startled about the dog killing mouse than the fact that there was a mouse in the house in the first place LOL. Hmmmm, they haven't visited since - coincidence??? Now that Ashley has passed on (miss you girl), DCON gets rid of them quick.
Cute story Terri. Hope that everyone enjoys today.
Ruby
Frankly, I was so happy to get to the end of your story. Half-way through, I anticipated that you would just have turned on the dishwasher!
I had a friend at college who was making her BF a cake for his birthday in the dorm kitchen. A fly landed on the batter. She tried to remove it, but ended up dunking it instead by mistake. So she turned the mixer to high and beat up the evidence. She baked and served that cake with fly bits included. BF was none the wiser.
Ewwww - Happy, I think that is a classic case of what we don't know won't hurt us LOL. I just noticed that in my story I said dog killing mouse instead of mouse killing dog - now that would have been an impressive mouse HA HA HA....
Terri I loved the story!
happy- well, ...I must say...I am probably not the only one who had a college BF who DESERVED a fly cake. ROFL!
I am sure that many of us have ingested things we weren't aware of and have lived despite it. I can't dwell too long on stories such as these due to a weak stomach to begin with and then giving much thought to the subject, makes for nausea waves galore.
Ruby
Heehee. Love the story
'no, dear, I don't want any. Besides, I made it just for you'. Hahahaha