Susan,

Gardening isn't easy because it is a dog-eat-dog world, to use an old phrase. Remember that every living thing in nature eats something or is eaten by something. From that viewepoint, your best natural control will come from other insects, bacteria, fungi, bats, birds, etc. that feed on cucumber beetles. In my garden, the argiope spiders and wolf spiders seem to do most of the cucumber beetle control, but I am sure lady bugs, tachinid flies, green lacewings and other beneficial insects do their share of it too.

There are six kinds of cucumber beetles and the methods that work to control (note, control doesn't mean total elimination) them will vary in effectiveness depending on which kind you have.

If you were worrying only about a field crop, control would be easier to achieve because you could use management techniques like aluminum reflective fabric-type mulching material, floating row covers or Surround to either exclude the beetles from your crop or to repel them. In a home garden, those methods are not as easy to use, especially when you garden for the butterflies.

Because their larvae are soil-dwellers in spring, you might be able to gain some control from applying beneficial nematodes to the soil, if you can carefully monitor soil temps and apply them at the right time. You also might have success using a product that contains beauveria bassiana.

You might have some success using neem oil on the beetles. It doesn't really kill them, but since it functions as an anti-feedant, you likely would see much less damage from them.

You might have success with a trap crop that would lure them away your desirable plantings, but the use of trap crops seems less effective (to me) when used in a home garden setting. Sometimes trap crops attract more pests than you'd otherwise have.

If you can move quickly with a hand-held cordless vacuum cleaner, you might be able to vacuum them up off your plants and dispose of them. However, they'll see you coming and take off so this may be of limited effectiveness, and the overall issue is that more of them just keep coming.

You possibly could catch a lot of them on yellow sticky traps. Instead of buying the pricey little yellow sticky traps, you can paint plywood or something similar yellow and then apply a layer of Tree Tanglefoot to that yellow-painted wood. When it is covered with beetles, wash off the dead bugs and tree tanglefoot (I use orange oil to clean off that type of messy, sticky residue/bugs), recoat the painted wood with a new layer of Tree Tanglefoot and put the yellow sticky traps back out. In commercial agriculture they use yellow sticky traps more as a monitoring device, but they can be somewhat effective in home gardens in urban areas (though much less effective in very rural areas with incredibly high populations of these pests).

In an area where cucumber beetles are a pest, it is best to clean up your plant debris in fall and I know that isn't necessarily the best option for you given that you have overwintering cats and chrysalises.

Because the most effective way to control cucumber beetles involves following a structured program of Integrated Pest Management, I'll go find ATRA's IPM pages for cucumber beetles. This document will go into great detail about the organic control of these pests and cites some of the most recent research, including research done in Oklahoma.

You might notice that they even have lists of cucurbits and rank them from being 'most attractive' to cucumber beetles to 'least attractive'. That info can be helpful for a gardener wanting to chose cucurbit varieties to plant.

If I were seeing large numbers of cucumber beetles now in a home garden, I'd hit them with neem oil, figuring it would reduce their feeding and plant damage. And, since we can assume that beetles that stop/reduce their feeding would be less healthy, maybe they'll reproduce less.

I also wonder (but haven't researched it) if the 'San Diego' form of Bt that is effective on Colorado Potato Beetles might also give some control of cucumber beetles. One of the newest products on the market---Spinosad---might or might not be effective. I only use it in granular products: Slug-Go Plus for control of sow bugs and pill bugs, and in organic fire ant baits. The liquid form of Spinosad you spray on plants might work on cucumber beetles. I haven't tried liquid Spinodas and likely will not try it because I avoid all broad-spectrum liquid pesticides due to their effects on some beneficial insects and bees.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: ATTRA--IPM of Cucumber Beetles

Thanks, Dawn, you're a great help! I wonder if some of these beetles are migrating right now. I understand that in the South we have more of the Spotted Cucumber Beetle, and the Striped Cucumber Beetle is more prevalent in the North. I did see one Striped CB today. But, there are literally just "clouds" of them that fly up whenever I walk by and just slightly brush the Asters (they've moved on from the Sunflowers, to the Tithonias, and now the Asters and Cosmos).

It seems like they just suddenly appear out of nowhere. I have never had much problems with loads of insects attacking the garden, but this year has been a real eye opener, especially with these vicious little Langoliers.

I will read your link and decide best how to approach the issue. I don't want to encourage an overwintering crop of them so I'll probably go ahead and clean up this fall and hopefully not damage too many overwintering butterflies and moths. I still have Monarch chrysalises that I'm waiting on to emerge. But, other butterflies, such as Black Swallowtails, Wild Indigo Duskywings, and Giant Swallowtails, overwinter as chrysalises. Plus, all of the sphinx moths do, too. I have a few captured moth cocoons overwintering in containers, so they'll be okay, but my little Snowberry Clearwings may suffer some losses by cleaning up if they didn't bury themselves good in the soil.

Choices, choices.......wish I didn't have to make them. And.....I didn't even grow any cucurbits this year, except for that darned pumpkin that died.

Susan