Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Paul Webber on October 24, 2009 at 9:14am

OK, I'll start.

I've been thinking about this for a long time. Most of these ideas are probably not rooted in reality, but who knows?

1. Use a poison on stink bugs that sterilizes them, like neuters them. We would have to deal with the population that is already here, but then they wouldn't be able to reproduce, and would eventually die off.

2. Use a poison of some kind that alters the way they lay eggs, so that the eggs have a smell or something that makes them attractive to other bugs to eat them.

3. I know that light traps attract more stink bugs to your house, so what if light traps were deployed by your town in places that were away from people's homes? In the middle of the woods, or at the top of telephone poles? So you would draw them away from homes and kill them there.

Ahhh, that was fun. OK, who else has ideas?

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Permalink Reply by Robert Osborn on October 26, 2009 at 5:49pm

i think there ought to be big centers that can attract stinkbugs and kill them with electrocution, etc. and then you can use the smell of the dead stink bugs to attract more and kill them, on and on. You could have like these bug-killing places in places nobody wannta live anyway like dumps or railroad tracks, etc. And they could be solar powered.

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Permalink Reply by TPL on January 25, 2010 at 11:02pm

I know Jeffery Aldrich up at the ARS is working on a combination slit and pheromone trap (the guy will be my hero if he pulls this off). There are a couple of technical Japanese papers that talk about a slit trap.

Until the ARS work is done, it seems like a slit trap could be constructed to help catch the little buggers. Although a BMSB specific pheromone is not available currently, a general crop stinkbug pheremone trap should at least help when used in conjunction with the slit trap.

The trap really should have a "vaned" appearance, with small slits (painted black on the inside, closely spaced to about 1/8" or 3/8") attractive to the bugs. The whole thing should be tapered, so that a stream of water or pressurizer air can be used to blow the collected BMSBs into a bucket of soapy water.

I actually bought some plywood and started tinkering, but got busy at work and couldn't revisit it.

In terms of catching them after they've entered your house, they seem strongly attracted to light. A blacklight trap in conjunction with pheromones could be used to catch them.

As a slightly more wild idea, can the bug be genetically engineered to *not* produce the chemical that stinks? If this could be accomplished, then it seems like predation (birds, lizards, other insects) would become a much more effective bio-control.

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Permalink Reply by Admin on January 26, 2010 at 10:48am

These are really good ideas. Thanks, TPL!

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Permalink Reply by neil on September 9, 2010 at 4:57am

TPL,
The little SBs are attracted to regular white light with infra red content in it and not so much the black lights which have ultraviolet or uv. That means an incandescent will do better than a florescent. You can still use the florescents with good success and compact florescent lights (cfls) make it easy to configure. Even those 15w night lights give some possibilities, but I just don't know if it is enough light to attract them that well even though they have a lot of infra red.

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Permalink Reply by JC on October 12, 2010 at 10:04am

Hi Neil,

I just saw your comment on infrared, too. Did you read about the traps in Nikki's post? Maybe if we could place some sort of light as you described on the inside of the trap it would be even more effective.

JC

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Permalink Reply by Thomas W Kane on September 15, 2010 at 12:18pm

I had a similar thought but I was considering using a disposable paper swimming pool filter sprayed with liquid adhesive and stink bug scent (ground stinkbugs) Given how fast they reproduce it seems that trapping them may not be effective. Short of a BT like product (bacillus thurengi) I don't know how to keep up with their capacity to reproduce (and tiny little bug condoms would be very difficult to convince them to use)

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Permalink Reply by Site Reader on October 2, 2010 at 3:01pm

I guessed that the stink bugs are attracted to the infrared heat radiation from the house. To test the hypothesis, I measured the sides and windows of a house, which is very infested, with a hand-held ranging thermometer. These are the kind that look like a small radar gun, and shine a red laser light on the target. The laser is only for aiming, however. The device is actually an infrared sensor, a photodiode which produces a tiny electrical current when excited by infrared photons.

The bugs tended to congregate on the north and east windows in late afternoon. Sure enough the temperature on these windows measured 1.5 degrees warmer than the exterior stone walls of the house at that time. Later in the evening, I also found a positive temperature differential around the windows on the south and west facing sides of the house, compared to the exterior walls.

It seems likely that the bugs are very sensitive to infrared heat radiation. It might be related to the red pigment in their eyes which is evident in magnified photographs (see
http://plantsnrocks.blogspot.com/2008/02/brown-marmorated-stink-bug... Perhaps installing an infrared source in a bug zapper, to replace the uv light in the standard ones, would be effective. I haven't had the chance to try it.

I was successful in keeping them out of one room in this infested house. First I taped screening around the slats and rear coil of the window air-conditioner, using duct tape. After that was only partially successful, I discovered a hole, where the other casement window met the stone exterior of the house. After caulking that, the bug infiltration into that room fell, from 50 a day to only a few.

A plastic bottle with a few inches of soapy water in the bottom is my trapper. I've learned to scoop them into it as they crawl up the window or wall. If they are facing downward, they almost leap to their death. If they are moving sideways or upwards, you have to use a quick scooping motion to cause them to fall in. The bottle cap serves as a trap, in case they fall to the window sill or other horizontal surface. Just place it over one, and slide him over to the edge where you've placed the bottle opening. I've probably killed 500 to 1,000 this way. If you keep the lid on, there is not much smell. A vacuum cleaner is faster, but the smell will get into the room from the exhaust port, if you have them in any number.

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Permalink Reply by JC on October 12, 2010 at 9:54am

I agree, Site Reader. One evening of my first year with SB's I got tired of the house being closed up and decided I needed to go outside and take a walk and get some fresh air on a very dark night. I did not turn on any outside lights. In about one minute a stink bug pinged me on the head. I felt sure this meant they have some means of recognizing the heat produced by the human body (and any other heat/light sources) I have also noted that individuals that I know who are always saying they are cold (human with lower body temp) are often ignored by the sb.

For optimal success in stink bug elimination, it's best to remove window a/c units early in September.

If you use a coffee can half filled with HOT water and Dawn it is easier for them to jump in.

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Permalink Reply by C Hab on October 3, 2010 at 10:58pm

Isolate the pheromone emitted by the female for breeding. Use that to capture the males in a trap.This may be hard to do since we do not much about the BMSB. Offer the traps at cost to keep price down and i am sure we can make a large impact. If the human race can cause one species to go extinct i am sure that we can eradicate this invasive species from our land. Also as an idea get all research that has been done in other countries.

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Permalink Reply by JC on October 12, 2010 at 10:00am

Help may be on the way, as posted by JT on CCG:

http://news.softpedia.com/news/One-Step-Closer-to-the-First-Stink-B...

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Permalink Reply by James Yavorsky on October 12, 2010 at 1:49pm

My son came up with a pretty good trap. If you have noticed, they tend to "let go" and drop when disturbed. At the Susquehanna Bank Center, they have clear plastic guitar shaped glasses for margaritas. They are about a foot tall with a long neck, a good handle shaped body and the top is flared nicely to catch the buggers. A little soapy water in the glass and then all you have to do is come up under them with the flared top. When touched, they seem to jump right into it! Flattening one side of the rounded flare with a little heat might help to put it flush against the window or wall to be sure to catch them, but keep it flat on top to make it easier to trap them on the ceiling.

"Yard style" is the key to the shape: http://www.imprintitems.com/custom/7040605

Put "yard style glass" in the search bar here:
http://www.dtodopromo.com/default.aspx

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