to be honest, we havent seen to many of them this year.

I had a bad spate of them a couple weeks ago, getting on my pole beans, morning glories and hollyhocks. I'm unemployed at the moment, so I was at liberty to hand-pick them. I got about 10-20 a day for a week, then only 5-10, and now none at all.

I grew pole beans last year and only saw a handful through the whole season. I didn't even realize they were eating the plants last year!

One thing I noticed about this year is that the first ones I killed were really big. Then as days passed, they got smaller and smaller, until the last ones I was killing were only the size of ladybugs, or pencil erasers. Little bitty things, but definitely japanese beetles.

Over on the vegetable forum they say that they know of no pesticides that will do in a japanese beetle, but traps work fairly well. There's some kind of chemical lure, a yellow plastic box, and then they drown/get stuck to something/get killed in the trap. They did warn that these traps **attract** japanese beetles, so you have to put them away from your garden or you'll only end up luring more beetles to your stuff.

I also read that when a japanese beetle finds a food it likes, it emits a phermone to attract other japanese beetles. That's why one day you'll have one or two, then the next day you'll have 20 or 30 as they call all their friends to come join the buffet.

Good luck with them! If you have the time, they're not that hard to hand-pick and kill, especially if you start by putting one hand under them and then trying to grab them with the other hand. Their primary defense to seeing a hand come to grab at them is to fall off, straight into your other hand. They can't bite or sting and they don't stink too bad, though they will try to "dig" their way out of your hand. I pulled their nasty little heads off, but you could drop them into a glass of soapy water too, to kill them.

They are pretty bad for me here in the east metro. I pick off about 20-30 each night and dump them in a small pail of soapy water. I wonder if this is really effective since they swarm the tops of my linden and cherry trees -- surely their numbers are far greater up there, where I cannot reach them.

The linden trees arround here look pretty bad. The beetles eat the green off the leaves and skeltonize them. The result are brown leaves. And my cherry, well, I'm pretty sad at the swiss cheese effect.

The beetles come in the standard size, though the females are bigger than the males.

I grew up in parts of this country where the Japanese beetles were an established pest. They will ruin fruit trees, turf grass, ornamentals, certain edibles and roses. I was hoping our cold winters would halt their US advance across Minnesota, but it looks like I'm wrong.

No solution other than to get used to them like most people in the eastern half of the US and Canada have done. And ask your nurseryman about beetle-resistance when you buy a tree!

We had them bad about a month ago - yes, they were bigger than normal, but they are gone now! Good riddance! :) Be patient, they will be gone soon for you too!