I second the advise to get guineas. I walk along my grape arbors and call the guineas over, then either knock the beetles off, or gather them up by hand and feed the guineas. They love 'em. I also think that they, and possibly chickens too, eat them as they emerge from the ground after the larval stage. I used to see lots of beetles climbing up tall plants, like ornamental grasses, I think to get in the sun so they can dry and harden and fly off to find our tender plants. I also have heard that traps just attract more beetles. But I've also heard of folks putting the traps inside the poultry run, then dumping the bugs out occasionally for the birds. Or even running a tube from the bottom of the bag to ground level so when the bug falls all the way out, it can get snapped up.

Our squash bugs aren't that fast. I can usually get them quickly if they don't fall to the ground. The cuke beetles and the shield/ stink bugs are fast. Thought the cukes love to land on me and then I just smack em dead on me. Part of the reason we had them so bad was I put leaves under the birdhouse gourds. Everything said to mulch, I didn't realize the type of mulch was important, but they were hiding and even laying their eggs in the leaves. I am seeing fewer around the garden, but the last I checked I still had a decent amt of nymphs with the birdhouse gourds with some eggs, but nothing like earlier in the season. I am certainly going to use them as a trap crop in the fall and do another in the spring. Then maybe I will only have to work on the cuke beetles next yr, but that is just wishful thinking.

Egghead, do you know if MS is known to do well in MA? I ask because I am in CT and my local extension office says that the stuff does not work well in my area. Reading around I believe there are some nematodes that would work better than MS where I am, but since I am not against using imidacloprid, and having had some very nasty lawn destruction from grubs in the past that I never want to experience again (and especially on my new KBG!) I am not inclined to experiment with them, so I just go with the imidacloprid in July.

GIO I'm going to look into finding the red dye as well. Are you planning on water, clove oil, and the red dye? I'd much rather use that than the Sevin... Yes, I'll be using the red dye, water, clove oil and other containers with the dye and tayuya root powder, which I have. No Sevin. The only place I could find the dental disclosing tablets was online. Your dentist might have some tucked away in a cabinet somewhere -- I'm not sure how common their use is these days, though I think they're used to help children brush thoroughly! But check to be sure the dye is #28 red, since #40 red is used sometimes. Also, about the clove oil. One woman tried it when we were experimenting but apparently put it full-strength and *some* liquid Sevin in a plastic cup. She reported that the next morning the bottom of the cup had melted away! I read later that undiluted clove oil WILL melt plastic. I used styrofoam cups and probably a greater dilution of the clove oil with water and didn't have any problems at all. Good point about the yellow containers. I got excited about making it more effective without considering the consequences to the pollinators. However, is the red dye toxic to the pollinators? The red dye will be consumed only by the insects attracted to the lure it's mixed with, and that's ONLY cuke beetles, not the pollinators or other insects. The reason is that the chemical compound, cucurbitacin , is in the lure that attracts cucumber beetles. It exists in varying degrees in all cucurbits, but the beetles flock to some cucurbit plants in droves and less to others, quite likely because of the strength of the odor. OTOH, pollinators are attracted to the cucurbit flowers, mostly through the kind of light emitted by various colors and probably the nectar in them, and cucurbitacin is of no interest to them. (Thus my reluctance to use anything yellow as a container in hopes of attracting the cuke beetles -- that might indeed attract the pollinators, too.) I hope your garden won't be as infested with cuke beetles this summer as last year! The kind of cucurbits you planted may have been the lure for so many (I didn't check your list against the list in the link), so if you can avoid growing them again, maybe the beetles will be smaller in numbers and it won't be a losing battle to keep the numbers low enough that you can harvest most of what you plant. That's about all we can ask of nature! I have Crenshaw melons, tomatoes, and beans out in the garden right now and haven't seem any insects so far except for flea beetles. So when these pests show up (and I know they will) that's when I'll set out the baited traps. I'll report back occasionally on how well it's working. It would be great if you (and anybody else who tries it) could do that, too. Report success OR failure. People have a tendency to not think about insect problems until they show up in THEIR garden, so it's possible that some who aren't interested in killing every insect on their plants will look for a solution a bit later in the season. I've never had to deal with Japanese beetles, but a zapper over a koi or other pond sounds like a great way to get rid of them! Sounds like you have some fun projects to think about!