Milky Spore is supposed to work well on your property....neighbors... Ha! Anyway I have used traps, squished, Sevined, and spored a small amount. It all helps in the long run as I have had only 1 so far on mine...that I have noticed anyway. Some say not to use the traps or get a neighbor to use them...Cowards LOL. Every dead beetle especially early in the season is a plus. It definitely is very helpful to have some "trap" crops near you to draw them to feed on something that doesn't matter...like wild grape vines. Then you can kill them off from there. They normally do not bother my veggies as there are "trap" crops nearby!!!

momamamo The traps must be working -- I have seen only two cucumber beetles this year. But hundreds of squash bugs, which I HATE and have found no organic way to kill them! vgkg I used both clove oil and the tayuya powder as the bait and put out five bottles each of the poison stew on their sides, thought I'd cover all bases. I tuck the open end of the bottles under large leaves and keep a general lookout for deteriorating leaves and move them if necessary. From what I could tell of the posts last year, both baits work equally well, and my use of both of them limits any conclusion I personally might make about the best one. But I do know they're working for me. I have cukes in one place, melons way down at the end of that trellised row, and squash two rows over from them. They don't seem to bother my beans, though I know they can be a host plant for these pests. Here's a full list: Vegetable crops damaged include cucumber, squash, beet, bean, pea, sweet potato, okra, corn, lettuce, onion, and various cabbages. Bean and soybean are especially favored (Chittenden 1912, Saba 1970). Except for nematodes, the natural enemies of banded cucumber beetle are poorly known. The mermithid nematode Filipjevimermis leipsandra affects this species, and natural infection levels in South Carolina were reported to be in the range of 20 to 40 percent from May through October. Ants have been shown to be important egg predators in the tropics, and likely are important elsewhere. http://creatures.ifas.ufl.edu/veg/bean/banded_cucumber_beetle.htm I didn't know ants might be egg-predators until I read the link above, so I suppose that's good reason not to destroy them. Do try the clove oil and Sevin to see if the beetle numbers go down. This is usually the heaviest infestation time, and I think it's impossible to keep their numbers small by hand-killing them. If it doesn't work for you, you can always mix the clove oil with a little olive oil and use it for toothaches or to un-itch mosquito bites, as well as in cooking! It's anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial and antifungal!

Eliot Coleman rigged up some gadget for his farm that goes down a row shaking plants from one side and sucking up Japanese beetles with a shop vacuum from the other. I'd like to see that in operation sometime. My berry plants' leaves got munched on this week by the beetles. I thought they were winding down but they seem to be staging some sort of grand finale. I don't know what sort of establishment they think I'm running but they seem to have grown more amorous as their season nears its end.

Harvestman , my apologizes if my post came off snotty. Was not meant in that way. Internet speak fails at times. You have helped me a great deal in my fruit growing quest, I appreciate the effort you put in here. The 2010 Midwest Tree Fruit Spray Guide has Imidan 70wp listed for summer cover sprays to control Jap beetles in apples. But like the Cornell guide not in plums. My guess that dont want imidan on stone fruits near harvest? I can give you lots of conflicting ideas and research. :> http://www.umass.edu/fruitadvisor/fruitnotes/v73/a1.pdf says imidan not effective against jap beetles but dont use 7 or pyrethroids (mites) http://www.michiganwines.com/docs/Research/08wise1.pdf research on killing jap beetles, and rain fastness of (Actara®), (Avaunt®),(Capture®), (Imidan®) (Sevin®). (interesting article, read it a few times and couldnt tell you whats best to use) And the MSU article on the OP. Joe-il