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!

Yes it is true, the traps work via pheremones, they waft freely as attractants, however most of the beetles that come to your yard for the traps actually find them and are trapped, if you have a large pond with large fish you can cut the bottom of the bag and put it slightly below water level and allow the beetles to become fish food, Also, guinea fowl will eliminate them but replace them with lots of noise. If they are hatching on your property you can apply milky spore to wherever they are coming from and kill larve before they become beetles, although this is an expensive means it will help to keep the population in check as it spreads through the area surrounding you and infects more and more grubs, but it does nothing to the adults. hth

Regarding the four o'clocks, what I have heard is that the Japanese beetles *will* eat the heck out of them, but that a little while later, after they fly off, they die of poison from eating them. I'm not sure if this is true or not, but that was what I was taught. I'm getting quite a few beetles this year already, more than the last two years. Usually, I just let them devour my yellow roses--I have two prolific Austins that bloom like crazy. The beetles prefer those so much that they mostly stay away from everything else and I can go out in the morning and squish them. Of course, I'd forgotten how much they like cannas. Hadn't had any cannas for a few years. But the yellow roses do seem to be their favorites. Apparently they are attracted to yellow as a food color, which is why all the traps are yellow, in addition to having a scent lure. Milky spore will help decrease the population in your yard, but there is nothing to prevent them from flying in from the neighbor's yard. If you can convince your neighbors or the neighborhood association to work together, every one can treat their yard, which WILL put a big dent in your local problem. But eventually they will come back. Luckily, they are mostly gone when mid-August rolls around. But the month of July is always a total loss for my roses.

Hi All! I have several raised beds and one has Canna and Four O'clocks. When the Jap' beetles arrived just over a week ago I began picking them off. At first first there were only 5 or 10. Then last weekend the amounts began to grow slightly. It was the first real beetle infestation I've had since we moved here 4 years ago. I had a metal Jap' beetle catcher from way back, along with a can of scent. I hung it in the middle of the bed on Monday eve. On Tuesday morning before leaving for out of town, I went to check to see if it was catching. I couldn't believe it. Without to much exaggeration there must have been 500 in the small 4 X 8 area. The pungent scent on Tuesdas hot humid morning must have drawn them to the catcher, with a quick stopover to the plants, from all of my neighborhood, and there was only 1 or 2 inside the catcher. Boy what a screw up that was. Well it's taken me almost a week of picking and drowning to get it under control. I began culling off all the hundreds of leaves they destroyed over the weekend. I had 1 beautiful Hollyhock in the bed that I left that came up from seed. All that's left are the Maroon blooms. I'm going to leave it to see how resilient a plant can be. Last year we had a Maple tree that was infested with the small inch caterpillar and I swear I was going to cut the tree down as we couldn't even use the hot-tub because of the droppings. I'm not that heartless so I'm leaving the Hollyhock as is because I swear the tree has come back stronger than ever. Of course the Holly won't have that chance for next year. But isn't Nature amazing? Jim