The problem with cucumber beetles is not the feeding per se, but the transmission of Bacterial Wilt. It only takes one beetle with a dirty mouth to destroy your cucumber and/or muskmelon crop. That's why waiting until the things are in high numbers before you start control methods is a waste of time. Controlling cuke beetles organically is next to impossible. They have been the bedevilment of farmers for over a hundred years. Here is the first line from the section on cucumbers in Peter Henderson's book "Gardening For Profit" written in 1867. "The growing of the Cucumber out-of-doors is, in most places , occasioned by the attacks of the "Striped Bug."When seed is sown in the open ground, repeated sowings are often utterly destroyed by this pest, despite of all remedies." Here are the tricks I've learned to keep the evil ones at bay. Plant your cucurbits as early as possible. Fertilize them well and get them up and running as fast as possible. Use IRT mulch for melons. Use row cover until flowering. Plant a "trap" crop such as zucchini or Hubbard squash at the periphery of your garden early on so it is up and growing at the time your valued crop is still protected. As soon as you see any cucumber beetles on the trap crop, spray the entire crop with a pyrethrin such as bifenthrin. I spray at night using a flashlight to avoid hurting bees. 7 to 10 days later, check again. Any beetles, blast the trap crop. Keep blasting the trap crop until you see no more beetles. 5. Once your crops are exposed and you see any cuke beetles, you must spray them as well. I have found with the trap crop method, the beetles disappeared for most of the season. Cuke beetles are strong fliers and will arrive in you garden from neighboring overwintering sites. 6. Succession plant your cucumbers, summer squash. Once a plant is infected with bacterial wilt, you have about two to three weeks until the plant croaks. 7. For organic growers, kaolin clay works OK, but keeping the plants covered with kaolin diminishes photosynthesis and once the plants are sprawling, I found it difficult to cover the plants. I also found the beetles were still a problem, though less so. For the SVB, I spray with bifenthrin as well. I also, inject the vines with spinosad. I haven't lost a plant to SVB for 3 years since using this method. Hope this helps.

Boo--I have a friend in New Mexico who *swears* she has found the cure for wilt LOL! Not ure if it works, but it is worth a try, right? She takes 3-4 tea bags, brews a strong dark tea, dilutes it to quarter-strength with water and feeds it to the ailing plants. she says she has brought back multiple plants this way. Worth a try, since the bugs are bothering your plants.

Bon, I am sure that the cucumber beetles transmit lots of diseases. The main ones that they usually transmit to cucurbits are bacterial wilt and cucumber mosaic virus. They also often transmit several different virus infections to beans. That's the huge issue with cucumber beetles and the only solution I know of is to grow under row covers that exclude the cucumber beetles or to spray the cucumber plants with Spinosad or some other botanical (organic) insecticide like Pyganic or Neem. Or, you can try growing a cucumber variety that has been bred to have a high tolerance of bacterial wilt. Most years I have cucumber beetles all over the place from February or March through about November. This year, I didn't see a single one until August. It was wonderful, and it likely never will happen again. While they weren't here earlier, they're here now and I was not happy to see them appear. In the absence of cucumbers, the cucumber beetles will visit just about any other plant you have. I just hate them. Some beneficial insects such as green lacewings, lady bugs and spined soldier bugs feed upon the cucumber beetle eggs or larva and that will help control the cucumber beetles, but here in our rural area, more just fly in every day so you have to have tons of beneficials to maintain any control of the highly mobile cucumber beetles. Birds and bats will eat cucumber beetles, so putting up bird houses or a bat house can help attract those predators to your garden. I also have a birdbath and bird feeders near my garden to attract more songbirds. My garden is full of birds right now, and I think they are feasting on grasshoppers and other pests....maybe that includes cucumber beetles. Dragonflies and damselflies eat lots of flying insects, but mostly small ones like mosquitoes and midges. They also will eat craneflies/mayflies, some butterflies and moths, and even smaller dragonflies or damselflies. Dragonflies are one of my favorite predators and because we have several ponds (albeit they have mostly been empty this year), we generally have tons of dragonflies and damselflies. They fly back and forth from the ponds to the garden all day long, and often sit on the tomato cages or trellises for watching for insects to prey upon. Dawn

Bacterial wilt in cucurbits is transmitted by the squash bugs so control of those is the best defense. Nothing I have found over the years says that removing all of an infected plant is necessary although removing infected stems probably is a good idea.