Japanese beetles are really chewing up the flowers on my crapemyrtles. How can I get rid of them?
Remove the beetles by tapping infested branches over a bucket of soapy water. The beetles drop to the ground when disturbed, and a gentle tap is enough to induce them to drop into the water. Japanese beetles are generally found near the flower clusters at the tips of branches, so focus your effort on the ends of branches that are just coming into bloom. Hand removal is most effective if you start early, just as the adult beetles emerge in early summer, and make their removal a daily task. Japanese beetles release two pheromonesone is an aggregation pheromone that signals other Japanese beetles to come to a suitable host plant to feed and the other is a sex pheromone that females use to attract males. If you remove the beetles daily, especially just when they are emerging, you will limit the amount of pheromone left on your crapemyrtles and often this measure is enough to avoid any real damage to the blossoms. Traps containing pheromones are largely ineffective since they attract many m
