Stink Bug Hordes Back, Ready for Courtship: What to Do

By BETH DALBEY (Patch Staff)

People aren’t the only ones shaking off winter after hunkering down for months.

The nemesis of homeowners last fall — nasty, stinking stink bugs — are crawling out of their hiding spaces and are hungry and itching to mate. Because they ended up in the United States by accident, there are no natural predators to stop their unfettered reproduction in alarming numbers.

The rapid growth of populations of brown marmorated stink bugs, often referred to as BMSBs, is a big problem, and not just because they stink.

And they do smell awful if you squash them, so don't do that. If you do, you’ll get a snoot full of a pungent odor that has been described as everything from spicy — think cilantro and coriander — to skunky to what week-old socks smell like.

But the bigger problem than the assault to your olfactory system is the threat of their voracious appetite, and the damage they can inflict with their piercing-and-sucking mouthparts — piercing-and-sucking mouthparts — on apples, peaches, corn, peppers, tomatoes, grapes, raspberries and other summertime favorites.

So far, stink bugs have been found in 42 states and two Canadian provinces, according to StopBMSB, a team of researchers who received USDA Specialty Crop Research Initiative funding to investigate ways to control their spread. The pest poses severe agricultural problems in nine states and nuisance problems in 17 others, including the Hudson Valley, where they were detected in 2010, according to the StopBMSB data.

Everyone Loves a Stink Bug Story

Researchers hadn't had a lot of luck mapping BMSBs as they chomp away at your favorite farmers market produce until last September. That's when Julia Moore, a tree fruit specialist for Michigan State’s Department of Entomology, posted an article on MSU Extension Today's website asking people to report sightings of stink bugs to the Midwest Invasive Species Information Network.

Moore’s story immediately went viral, accumulating 100 views per minute and an average read time of 4 minutes and 23 seconds. By January, it had been viewed 100,000 times.

Moore said she asked for the reports “partly out of frustration,” because not much was known about the 10 years between the first stink bug reports in Pennsylvania in 1996 to the pest's emergence as a significant threat to late-season orchards in Mid-Atlantic states.

Records filed with the Midwest Invasive Species Information Network increased from six before the article was posted to more than 2,700. Moore is analyzing the data to identify hotspots, so growers can begin scouting for the pest this growing season.

Oh, No! Stink Bugs in the House!

None of that, of course, helps if the front line in the war against stink bugs is at your house right now. What should you do?

• Sweeping or vacuuming can remove bugs already in homes, Cornell University Cooperative Extension says. If possible, use an old vacuum you can junk when you’re done, because the stink bugs may live up to their name and stink it up. A shop vac or a wet vac can also be used.
• Be careful handling them, because that could cause the stink bugs to go into defensive mode and emit the smell, but dropping them in a pan of soapy water can be effective.
• Some resourceful homeowners have found that attracting the stink bugs by mounting a light or desk lamp above a pan of soapy water is an effective, inexpensive indoor trap.
• No insecticides are registered in New York State for homeowner use or for the management of stink bugs indoors. Once the insects have entered the structure, use of a pesticide is not helpful, as dead insects that cannot be easily removed may attract more insects that scavenge on the remains, according to the Cornell University Cooperative Extension.
• You might spend the summer shoring up cracks where stink bugs get in your house.

Here’s a video about what to do to keep them out of your house. Note that the moderator calls them “diabolical.”

If All Else Fails, Trick the Stink Bugs

Rodale’s OrganicLife magazine says controlling stink bugs may be accomplished by enticing them with a sacrificial crop of some of their favorites — sweet corn, amaranth and okra — and then destroying the crop and the stink bugs once they've settled in.

Remember, they're "diabolical."

But there’s a hitch: “Although you want to plant the trap crop close to your vegetables, we don’t yet know what the ideal distance is,” Anne Nielsen, a fruit entomology extension specialist at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ, told OrganicLife.

Here are some other tips:

• Introduce some natural predators, such as ants, ladybird beetles and some lacewings by planting sunflowers and French marigolds.
• Insecticidal sprays are really only effective on younger stink bugs. BMSBs aren’t likely to ingest a fatal dose of insecticide through feeding, so spray them directly on the bugs. But because they’re fast movers, they’re likely to quickly repopulate, and you may harm beneficial insects. Because of that, even organic pesticides aren’t recommended.
• Commercial stink bug traps may be effective if you get them out in early spring. Stephanie Cates, a spokesperson for Rescue stink-bug trap manufacturer Sterling International, said they should be placed in trees and bushes where the emerging bugs are likely to conduct their mating courtship.
• Put on your gloves and hand-pick the nymphs and adults and drop them in soapy water. At the same time, destroy clusters of light green, barrel shaped eggs found on the undersides of leaves. Tip: Don't be unnerved by the sinister-looking "faces" on the eggs.

Patch Staff Writer Michael Woyton contributed to this report.

Image credit: MUExtension417 via Flickr / Creative Commons