Simple solution................
Posted on 12/16/2010 7:03:24 AM PST by Dominic L. Fottfoy
I clicked on this thread thinking it was about Scott Brown - the stinker.
How, when, where, to what do you apply it? How often?
I'm already planning next year's garden.
No...different kind of annoyance...I can certainly understand the confusion between the two, however...
In late summer, they swarm on my back porch and deck. They congregate in the folded deck umbrellas, under tarps, etc.
I let them swarm ... then I get them with the Shop Vac. The bag and filter must be replaced after a stink bug session. Last summer (2010) I had two stink bug vacuuming sessions; got thousands of them. I haven't seen any indoors since the cold weather set in. In 2009, I did only one session, and fought them all winter.
We’ve had them for quite a few years (it being BMSB Ground Zero here). Some things I’ve learned:
1. Raid doesn’t work. I tried 4 kinds and they just laugh at you.
2. Same for glass cleaner, even if it has ammonia.
t. You can keep them out for the most part, but you have to be really imaginative. You have to caulk, inside and outside like never before. I’m talking a CASE of caulk. If you have a window unit A/C, they’ll find their way THROUGH the A/C unit — go outside and cover the ENTIRE unit with screening material and tape it down such that there are NO gaps. iIt pays to be especially paranoid and even fold the edges and cornere before taping it down.
Act like you’re trying to keep radioactive fallout out and you might have a chance. So far Ilve kept them out, but they’re relentless and imaginative.
Also, consider getting half a dozen birdfeeders and birdhouses. I think some birs will eat them.
It would be nice to know if DDT wrks, because Raid sure doesnt . The ONLY thing I’ve ever sprayed on these things that works 100% of the time is liquid nitrogen. Unfortunately, you only get a few such sprays from an upside-down can of canned air.
Nope. If they were, 0 would have them on the endangered species list.
Chickens and Ducks are the natural enemies.
Simple solution................
I most likely mistook our common brown stink bug for the marmorated kind. I'm in good company.
Earlier this year Renee Studebaker, who writes Renee's Roots, the garden of an urban farm girl for the Austin Statesmen-American, wondered if the stink bugs attacking her tomatoes were the dreaded marmorated variety. She emailed a picture to Texas AgriLife entomologist Elizabeth Brown. What follows is from Ms. Studebakers' 1 October 2010 blog entry: Austin's common brown stink bug is no fun, but at least he isn't trying to invade my house
"We don't not have any confirmed reports of Brown marmorated stink bugs in Texas," she said in an emailed response to my stink bug query. And although brown and green stink bugs were really awful in my garden this summer, Brown says there's no indication that their numbers are on the rise either. Well, that's all good to know.
But not so good to know is that most of the researchers studying these bugs say their populations are increasing and they're on the move, so it's likely they will continue to spread throughout the U.S. Ugh. Just what my tomatoes need — more stink bugs.
Well, at least they don't seem to be any harder to kill in a home garden than native stink bugs. From what I've been able to glean from reports by garden bloggers in the Marmorated stink bug states, (including Cathy Purdy, who writes Cold Climate Gardening), the Asian stink bugs can be controlled the same way other stink bugs are controlled: organic sprays that contain soap, orange oil or botanical toxins (i.e. pyrethrin); handpicking; shop vac suction; egg squishing; and drowning in a bowl of soapy water.
To reduce the number of native stink bugs in our Central Texas gardens, Brown recommends doing general cleanup this fall and winter to get rid of garden debris, weeds, etc. that offer stink bugs shelter from the cold. "In the spring I would recommend monitoring plants early and keeping an eye on things to locate stink bug eggs or nymphs early," Brown said. "They will be easier to control in the smaller nymphal stages."
So, I guess I'll keep my fingers crossed that I just don't my stink bugs, follow Ms. Browns advice, and plan on the Spring planting, which for me begins on or about March 3rd. I was all set to blame my lousy Fall tomatoe and cucumber production on an insect which (hopefully) isn't even here yet.
R.
I thought I had vacuumed them all up and had pretty much forgotten about the issue, but then I found there were several dozen of the little sods roosting in some of the folds of my beautiful living room curtains. Ick!
Good suggestion about the shop vac, I’ll bring mine back from the barn.
“go outside and cover the ENTIRE unit with screening material...”
Gosh, I wish I knew that before. We had (notice past tense) a window unit on the second floor in the master bedroom. Stink bugs were all over the place. The unit finally stopped working and hubby tried to take it out of the window. He got a good hold of it and was doing fine until about ten of the little buggers swarmed right into his face.. thus, he dropped the window unit. It EXPLODED and there were literally maybe 100 dead stink bugs inside the unit. Neighbors were really surprised he could cuss so well...
Nope. More Chinese imports......
The ducks love to eat them.
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Yep. I keep muscoveys and a few others plus chickens. They are great at keeping down insects, except for the fly population but that’s another story with cattle and horses in the summer.
Wearever brake cleaner kills them dead in seconds. I work in an auto parts store and we had stinkbugs there too and we tried everything, electronic cleaner, Purple Power and so on. Brake cleaner is the only thing that works although we haven’t tried starter fluid yet. A fellow delivery driver, he’s 65, had a heart attack along with bypass surgery last year, like a young kid, he even climb up on the walls and fences up to 10 feet or more to spray them. I always joke, “go get ‘em, Jack Bauer.” B-)
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