May 4, 2011 – Stink Bug Traps
QUESTION:
How do you control stink bugs? Are there any traps or pheromones out there?
ANSWER:
The Brown Marmorated Stinkbug (BMS) certainly has taken the country by storm in the past couple of years. I recall that just a few years ago this invasive species was still kind of a nuisance, but tolerable except for the occasional home that got a lot of them in it. Suddenly, it seemed, in 2010 the news exploded with reports on the BMS, not only in its massive invasions of structures but also its clear threat to agriculture. It is a fairly large stinkbug, and cannot be overlooked. It also now is firmly entrenched on the West coast, so we'll see what impact it has on the enormous agricultural industry out here, along with another stinkbug species that recently entered California and Arizona, the Bagrada Bug. Read about these on BugInfo.com.
Since I wasn't aware myself of any current traps for the BMS I went and Googled a bit, and found a few interesting things. There is one indoor trap being sold privately by someone who invented one himself, after toying with various concoctions that he found attracted the bugs to a lighted trap with a glue board in it. The attractive scent is just certain vegetables, and he has had both good and bad reports back from people who have purchased it from him.
In our market the manufacturer of the Sterling (Rescue) Yellowjacket Traps has announced they will soon market a pheromone trap for the BMS, and that this does use a sex pheromone as the attractant. The manufacturer claims it attracts both nymphs and adults, but since nymphs cannot fly the trap would need to be placed against foliage so the early stages could crawl onto and into it. It also has a very limited radius of attraction, so you can't place a couple on the back fence and expect the neighborhood to be rid of the bugs. There appear to be a lot of home remedies offered on the internet, but hopefully the one from Sterling will be useful in landscapes to at least cut the populations down, or to place around the home in the Fall to capture the bugs before they enter for the winter.
How do you control stink bugs? Are there any traps or pheromones out there?
ANSWER:
The Brown Marmorated Stinkbug (BMS) certainly has taken the country by storm in the past couple of years. I recall that just a few years ago this invasive species was still kind of a nuisance, but tolerable except for the occasional home that got a lot of them in it. Suddenly, it seemed, in 2010 the news exploded with reports on the BMS, not only in its massive invasions of structures but also its clear threat to agriculture. It is a fairly large stinkbug, and cannot be overlooked. It also now is firmly entrenched on the West coast, so we'll see what impact it has on the enormous agricultural industry out here, along with another stinkbug species that recently entered California and Arizona, the Bagrada Bug. Read about these on BugInfo.com.
Since I wasn't aware myself of any current traps for the BMS I went and Googled a bit, and found a few interesting things. There is one indoor trap being sold privately by someone who invented one himself, after toying with various concoctions that he found attracted the bugs to a lighted trap with a glue board in it. The attractive scent is just certain vegetables, and he has had both good and bad reports back from people who have purchased it from him.
In our market the manufacturer of the Sterling (Rescue) Yellowjacket Traps has announced they will soon market a pheromone trap for the BMS, and that this does use a sex pheromone as the attractant. The manufacturer claims it attracts both nymphs and adults, but since nymphs cannot fly the trap would need to be placed against foliage so the early stages could crawl onto and into it. It also has a very limited radius of attraction, so you can't place a couple on the back fence and expect the neighborhood to be rid of the bugs. There appear to be a lot of home remedies offered on the internet, but hopefully the one from Sterling will be useful in landscapes to at least cut the populations down, or to place around the home in the Fall to capture the bugs before they enter for the winter.
