dont confuze bean beetles with cucumber beetles, they're different buggers bean beetle http://images.search.yahoo.com/images/view?back=http%3A%2F%2Fimages.search.yahoo.com%2Fsearch%2Fimages%3Fp%3Dbean%2Bbeetle%26fr%3Dyfp-t-501%26toggle%3D1%26cop%3Dmss%26ei%3DUTF-8&w=335&h=500&imgurl=static.flickr.com%2F2287%2F1632300876_8ddced300e.jpg&rurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.flickr.com%2Fphotos%2Fnaturespixel%2F1632300876%2F&size=80.6kB&name=Bean%20Beetle&p=bean%20beetle&type=JPG&oid=8d7581b417cb279a&fusr=NaturesPixel%20Photography&tit=Bean%20Beetle&hurl=http://www.flickr.com/photos/naturespixel/&no=3&tt=757 cucumber beetle http://images.search.yahoo.com/images/view?back=http%3A%2F%2Fimages.search.yahoo.com%2Fsearch%2Fimages%3Fp%3Dcucumber%2B%2Bbeetle%26y%3DSearch%26fr%3Dyfp-t-501%26ei%3Dutf-8%26js%3D1%26x%3Dwrt&w=333&h=500&imgurl=static.flickr.com%2F3231%2F2308061704_8a1ede2da5.jpg&rurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.flickr.com%2Fphotos%2Fseismic_2000%2F2308061704%2F&size=85.5kB&name=Spotted%20Cucumber%20Beetle%20on%20rose%20petal&p=cucumber%20%20beetle&type=JPG&oid=3f00fb8192afbb46&fusr=Seismic_2000&tit=Spotted%20Cucumber%20Beetle%20on%20rose%20petal&hurl=http://www.flickr.com/photos/seismic_2000/&no=3&tt=590 bean beetles will decimate your beans. as for the CPB, hand pick until you can't keep up, spray, then go back to hand picking until you can't keep up, spray etc.

You are certainly free to do as you wish... But, having openened the topic for opinions, here's mine for your consideration... Seems like it would be easiest (and free) to just squash the 5 bugs and their eggs. You've already done the hard part - finding them. I assume you are growing potatoes to save money or to have fresh organic ones. The $ you spent on Sevin is probably more than the cost of any potatoes you might lose by not using it. If you want to eat food that had carbaryl on it, it seems easier to just buy them and leave the chemicals to the professionals. You could investigate a companion plant for the potatoes that would attract a predator of the beetles. Whatever you decide, best of luck to you and your potatoes! Here is a link that might be useful: Sevin is not an entity I wish to support or perpetuate

I used a Bayer 3in1 hose end product on the roses. I have no idea if it will help at all or not. I have seen them on: roses cherry tree sassafras tree corn hibiscus moscheutos I need to go out back and check the new orchard! I am trying to pick them off as I see them and drown them in a coffee can of water. I suspect it is a loosing battle. I know they love the elm trees....those they can have!

borderokie, Unfortunately for those of us who try to raise our gardens as pesticide-free as possible, the alternate methods that we employ instead of spraying pesticides are, indeed, extremely time-consuming. What I have found is that if I can manage to find the time to hand-pick and destroy the beetles when the outbreak first begins, then I will have little to no trouble with them after that. Thus, I might have spent a ridiculous amount of time over the course of a few days hand-picking and drowning the beetles, but I haven't found many since then--maybe 3 or 4. What I have noticed the last few days is that the spined soldier bugs have shown up and now are sitting on top of the potato leaves. They will provide CPB control for me for the remainder of the summer, so my work is done. An alternate method of doing this if your garden doesn't have a naturally-occurring population of spined soldier bugs is to buy some from an insectary and release them. We also have two turtles crawling around in the garden who like to eat CPBs when they can find them, but the turtles are more effective when the plants are smaller and the beetles are down low within their reach. With all the recent rainfall, the potato plants are very tall now and the turtles cannot reach the bugs that are higher up on the plants. For a long time, we could use Colorado Potato Beater's old formulation (and other products with the same active ingredient), which at the time contained a bioinsecticide called Bacillus thuringiensis 'san diego' or 'tenibrionsis'. Unfortunately, those products have become harder to find. Bonide, which makes and sells Colorado Potato Beater changed their product's formulation from the Bt strains to Spinosad. I assume they did this because repeated spraying of the Bt product was leading to Bt-resistant CPBs. History has shown that CPBs develop resistance to or tolerance of commonly-used insecticides so you have to rotate the products you use in order to prevent that from occurring, or to at least slow it down. You still might be able to find one of the Bt products that target CPBs at a farm store or someplace with a great selection of organic pesticides, but all the stores here near me merely carry Bonide's spinosad product. Be sure you find the particular strain of Bt that targets CPBs, because there are other strains available that target other insects, like Bt 'kurstaki' for caterpillars or Bt 'israelensis' for mosquito larvaw. Pyrethrin sprays often work on CPBs too, but they are more toxic to other life forms and I don't want to use them in my garden, especially the formulations that contain PBO. We have cats that spend a lot of their time in the garden with me and pyrethrins can cause nervous system disorders in cats, so I don't use pyrethrins often, and generally only as a last resort. Sometimes I'll spray Take-down Spray directly on a pest, like blister beetles, in the garden, but not when the cats are in the garden with me, and never on a plant the cats adore like catmint, catnip or cat grass. Larry, You could try the net and see if it works. CPBs are smart and do seem to 'dive' off the plants when they see us reaching for them. To get around that, i hold the bowl of soapy water under the leaf with my left hand and then reach for the CPB with my right hand. If the CPB sees my hand approaching and attempts to jump or fall off the leave to get away, it falls right into the bowl of soapy water. Isn't that helpful? I appreciate that those CPBs put themselves right into the bowl of soapy water for me. Dawn