Japanese beetles

Posted on garden foes, but just in case--had anyone had any experience with the pherenome traps for these destroyers?

I have two Japanese Beatle traps, one in my front yard and one in my back yard. They both work well capturing many beatles.

I have had them both placed near my flowers, but a friend suggested that they should be placed in a corner of the yard to attract the beatles away from the flowers. I will experiment with them.

Ok throw something at me if you must!:) I found the traps just draw more to your yard. I tried them a time or 2 then got rid of them I had more with them then without them. We usually have them real bad,this year I have only seen a few but then I am not sure when they really hit here.

I just hung up my trap like about 10 minutes ago. I put it out away from everything though. They are having a feast with my crape myrtles this year. I have used them years before and they worked pretty good, at this point I want to at least get rid of the ones that are in my garden. If they come for miles away to get to the trap or my flowers....then I'll just have to hang out more traps.

I moved my traps back near the flowers that were being eaten. It is in the sun, and immediately I could see many beatles flying around and into the trap. The bait arouses them sexually before they drop into the container. What a way to go!

Here's what I use, with powdered Sevin

http://www.charleysgreenhouse.com/catalog/index.cfm?page=_ProductDetails&ProductId=6541

I get great personal satisfaction, blasting the (*&$^%s.

Gardengym - How often to you need to apply the Sevin to keep the beatles away.

I had just been dispatching them "manually"-great tension reliever-but then I saw across the road and the skeleton leaves they were working on look like the leaves that have been falling from my river birch-will try the traps across the road-thanks for the help. %$#@*&^ things.

"How often to you need to apply the Sevin to keep the beatles away."

During my early-morning walk around my gardens, I scan for signs of JB activity; holes in leaves, congregations on flowers, etc.

I grab the Sevin gun, and dispatch them with extreme prejudice ;)

Doing so each morning minimizes the use of Sevin, it doesn't take much, merely a round or two of the crank, point and shoot, when I come back, the buggers are belly-up.

I have had more this year than for the last few. Really feasting on my roses. I tip them into a cup full of Pine-sol mixed with water (I am too squeamish to crunch them with my hands). They die a slow and painful death in the liquid, and when they are all squeaky clean, I toss the liquid into the street and put the dead bugs on the ground around the plants they were desecrating to become fertilizer! Serves 'em right!

I did use traps other years, not sure if I got more than I would otherwise, but I had a very hard time getting full bags off without releasing them. And some brands of traps didn't work well keeping them down -- some figured out how to get out. One year I had 4 traps set up, and used 14 bags during the season! I had to put up new bags every 3-4 days or they would be so full that the bugs could just WALK out! Not that bad this year, but almost...

The Japanese Beatles abound in these here parts. I am collecting them in two traps and spraying my flowers with Seven which seems to keep them under control.

Oddly enough they attack my rogussa roses and leave my regular roses alone. Knock on wood.

A few days ago I moved my Japanese Beatle trap down wind from my flowers in a sunny location. Yesterday I took a look and was surprised to find the canister nearly full.

Does anyone have a suggestion as to how to dispose of these unwanted critters? I used a bucket of hot water with some bleach and stirred them around a bit, but they still kept trying to fly out. Finally after getting them fairly subdued, I flushed them down the toilet.

I am thinking of composting them, but I do not want to add bleach to the compost.

Do you have extra bags for the trap? Tie the bag up and leave them out to bake in the sun for a couple of days. They you could just dump the the dead ones in the compost.

Japanese beetles were very bad here when I first started gardening. I started out by just hand picking them but I couldn't keep up with them. Eventually I tried a nematode product from gardens alive. http://www.gardensalive.com/item_display.asp?ProductNumber=5000 I'm not possitive this is the reason for the population decline here... but they haven't been bad in several years. I still get a few but nothing like they used to be.

Today I had two traps full to overflowing. This time I sumerged them into a bucket of boiling water, stirred them until none of them were trying to fly out, and flushed them down the plumbing.

Nevertheless, my ragusso rose buses were peppered with them; so I sprayed them with Malathion with, of course, the handy dandy Ortho sprayer. It works slicker than.........

So far they are only on my crape myrtles this year. Don't seem to be eatting anything else. I think I need to move my trap alittle closer though, because it doesn't seem to be working as far out as I have it.
Last time I used the traps though(which was last year or year before) I used to just put the whole bag of beetles down in a ziplock bag and seal it up and put it in the outside garbage can. Didn't bother to try and flush them, just sealed them up in air tight bags and tossed them out.
No where near as stinky that way. LOL

I wonder if my traps could use the bags. I have the plastic canisters that remind me of the snake pits in Indian Jones movies.

I think it is important that the traps are placed in the sun.

Wonder if we have 2 different types of traps? Mine is just the plastic bags that hooks to the yellow X shaped trap.
Most of the time after my bag would get full, that is when I would just pull it down and put the bag and all down in a ziplock bag. I don't try to pour them in the ziplock I just put the whole thing in it. What kind of trap do you have? I mean does yours not have disposable bags that come with it??

My traps have the yellow X with the bait, but the beetles fall into a reusable canister rather than in a disposable bag. I had the choice, when I bought them, bur for some reason I thought the canisters would be better. Now I am wondering.

How to you attach your bags to your trap?

Birdsall, can you put a plastic bag as a liner inside your canister? That way you can remove it and dispose of it that way.

Mystic is right - putting out traps only encourages others to visit and join the party. I have done extensive research on this problem since my garden has just about been destroyed by these pests and more or less undone all my hard work over the past two years making me feel sick to my stomach. My neighbours used them this year and I believe that's why they have been visiting in their thousands. Here is something from the University of Kentucky.......

JAPANESE BEETLES
By L. H. Townsend. Extension Entomologist
University of Kentucky Department of Entomology

Trapping Beetles
In recent years commercial or homemade traps have become a popular means of trying to reduce beetle numbers. Commercially available traps attract the beetles with two types of baits. One mimics the scent of virgin female beetles and is highly attractive to males. The other bait is a sweet-smelling food-type lure that attracts both males and females. This combination is such a powerful and effective attractant that traps can draw in thousands of beetles in a day. Only a portion of the beetles attracted to traps are caught in them. Small number of traps in a home landscape can actually increase Japanese beetle problems rather than reduce them.

Traps MAY be effective in reducing Japanese beetle problems if used throughout a neighborhood or in open areas well away from valuable plantings or vulnerable crops. In most home landscape situations, using 1 or 2 traps probably will do more harm than good.

Collecting Beetles
Hand collecting obviously is not the most effective method of control, but can be used to protect valuable plants when beetle activity is relatively low. The presence of beetles on a plant attracts more beetles. When you remove beetles daily by hand from a plant, only about half as many are attracted to that plant compared to those on which beetles are allowed to accumulate. One of the easiest ways to remove beetles from small plants is to shake the plants early in the morning (about 7 a.m.) when temperatures are low and the beetles sluggish. The beetles may be killed by shaking them into a bucket of soapy water........."

btw - I do collect them about four times a day and it's true they are easy to destroy in the morning and again in the evening. I only use soapy water in a plastic container and they die almost immediately. I then tip the whole mess in the compost pile, as some other expert suggested.

I can never decide which part of their life cycle that I hate more. The adults do obvious damage to our prized flowers and fruit crops; the juveniles do their work underground, often unnoticed until the affected plants die.

Grubs hatch and immediately start to eat. They especially like grass roots, strawberry roots and clover roots, but will eat almost any roots that grow where they hatch -- underneath the female's eating place. I already have several bare patches of grass in places. *sigh

There are only two sure-fire remedies to eliminate these: granular insecticides that gradually work their way down and kill them (the most widely used, Diazanon, has been banned now), although Merit is still permitted in lawns or dig them up and kill them.

The recommended organic method, Milky Spore Disease, will not work in heavy clay soil unless used at a much higher degree than recommended, and even then it is not very effective.

I went to the store where I bought my traps and inquired about the "disposable bags" kind. I found that the "disposable bags" cost $4.00 for three. I think I will stay with the reusable canisters.