Argh!! Invasion!!

extra protein for the girls too!

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It is bad here in central MO. They started swarming yesterday. We were in town and there was nothing and by the time we got home (5 miles) the air was just full of them. Tons got into the laundry room and my bedroom. The kids have been catching them and putting them in containers - I guess it gives them something to do. I walked out to feed the dogs and came in with about 10 on me.

I hate them! I was trying to finish painting and they were sticking all over. So our house is Chinese Chestnut with a hint of Asian Beetle! One flew right into my ear. They were everywhere and they were even finding their way into my shirt. Gross! I agree the vacuum takes care of them easily.

I just came in from painting the chicken coop, and the bathroom is full of them. They came in arround the air conditioner. I'm going to wait until dark, then vacume.

i would be tempted to sweep a few hundred of them up and toss them in with the chickens and see if they will eat them if they will i just need to figure out how to attract them to one spot that i can get the chicken to eat them in

Chickens won't eat them! I scooped up a bunch off the side of the garage and took them out to the girls, you would have thought I brought them poison from the way they acted.

Emmy

Here too. Every year when they farmers start harvesting soybeans it stirs them up.

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Dear Math, it is time you grew up and solved your own problems.

We live in North Central Indiana and they just arrived this afternoon. They are thick! I really thought they would not be here this year!

We've got them along with the stinkbugs. So now we have two different bugs that both stink crawling around and in the house. I might as well live outside with all of the critters instead of inside with all of the critters

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Raising grass-fed beef and lamb.

I'll bet that if a person liquified them you could use the juice to spray shrubs and plants to keep the mice and rabbits from eating the bark. Sounds like a good use for them.

It might even be good for keeping the neighbors cat out of the flowerbed.

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"Do you believe in the devil? You know, a supreme evil being dedicated to the temptation, corruption, and destruction of man?" Hobbs
"I'm not sure that man needs the help." Calvin

They're here in south western IL, too!

Thankfully I have a 10 year old boy who has his own vacuum. He LOVES to suck them off the ceiling and walls! It's a cannister vac so he just lets them go outside.

I was decorating the porch yesterday and they were BAD out there. DH came to talk to me an in under a minute he had about 2 dozen crawling on him. He must be sweeter than me because I only had about 10 on me!

Central Wisconsin has them about this time every year. I thought with the cold temps that they may have died prematurely since we usually see them before this date. NOPE...they were out in full force, swarming so thick that I had to work indoors instead of out in the nice weather. So once the sun went down, I went outside with my pump sprayer loaded with insecticide and sprayed the heck out of the little devils that had landed on our log house. In the morning, there were PILES of them everywhere. Thankfully, it is going to be cold, rainy and dreary for the next few days with dropping temps. After such a lousy summer, who'da thought I'd be happy to see cold weather arrive so soon?????

And yes...they're in the house too. DH does on beetle patrol every hour with the hand vac. It's interesting that once they find a way into the house, they also seem to bring along their "friends" Mr. Fly, Mr. Box Elder Bug and Mr. Pine Beetle. Ughh...

RVcook

I almost posted here yesterday and agreed with Rita in TN. I'm in TN and we haven't had any yet ...............that was until I got home last night and found out they just arrived! They always appear after the 1st cold snap when the weather warms again. They hang around the East side of our house because of the sun.

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"I've learned that you shouldn't go through life with a catcher's mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw some things back..." Maya Angelou

We have the box elder beetles, and were going to spray, but someone suggested VACUUMING them up. WE did that with a cannister vac, then dumped it out into a bucket of water at night when they were cold and sluggish. Then we used our carpet cleaning machine with the huge long hose and also that sucks stuff into water tank inside, kills them right away and easy to dump(no the chickens won't eat them ) The carpet cleaner was easier to clean of bug debri than the vac BTW. The carpet cleaner is a "real" one with a wand and a long hose--not the vacuum cleaner type(the next model up would be a truck mount)

Anyways, you have to be vigilant and keep vacuuming again and again ad nauseum. We had absolute HORDES covering the house, and since we did the marathon vacuuming a few years ago there have only been a handful seen.

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THE BEGINNING IS NEAR
5-star double-rated astronavagatrix earth girl

Asian beetles? You mean these little blaggards?

Invasions suck hey! In the last 6 months I have had Flying Ant, Rose Beetle, Hornet & Tiny Fly invasions. Keeps the cleaner busy for sure but can make it difficult to sleep sometimes!

As I stumbled out in the snow drifts to feed the turkeys the other morning, I saw a large pile of red/brown somethings-or-others at the base of one of the trees.

Got closer and saw that it was dead asian beetles.

It has been absolutely miserably cold here, but it warmed the deep recesses of my heart to see those dead bugs lying there.

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Je ne suis pas Alice

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Wow.............reading all these posts gave me the creeps! Up here in northern MN we usually don't get them until fall, and we have plenty of snow on the ground right now, and it was minus 14 this morning here. Guess the cold is good for something?

Anyway, the best thing I have found to kill them is Home Defense Spray. (I think it's made by Ortho, you can get it at any hardware store or places like Menard's or Home Depot). I spray it all around the inside and outside of windows, and then sweep up their carcasses and bury them. I say bury, because once I just dumped them out, and found them still moving! This was before I discovered Home Defense Spray, and just used a bug bomb, which didn't really kill them. The Home Defense stuff works for a couple months to repel them. If I have a lot of them inside the house, I vacuum them up (put Home Defense in the shop vac container). They haven't been bad for a couple years up here, so I hope this isn't an indication that they are planning to come back again with a vengeance! They are nasty, stinky little things!

Usually, we just ignore them. (Except in the house. We vacuum them.) So far, they haven't bothered the produce. They are called Mexican Bean Beetles (at least, by the people who don't mistake them for Lady bugs, WHICH ARE ACTUALLY BENEFICIAL!).

Just FYI our lovely government drops them from planes here along with their new experiment "dumb Flys" at least that's what we call them. Huge flies that do nothing but eat and poop, they are suppose to lay eggs in the Gypsy Moth which hatch and eat the caterpillars, but I don't see how they can do that when they act more like Jaba the Hut too slow to get out of the way. Pest strips get coated within minutes of being hung up. We actually have contests here to see who can catch the most in 5 min.