by Annie M Manzi

Created on: February 26, 2010   Last Updated: March 10, 2010

The kids were young and I could still get them to do chores without  too much complaining from them. So I took advantage of that power when I didn’t want to do an especially unpleasant task. Late June came around and the Japanese beetles started to come out in force. I decided this was one of those times I would put the kids to work doing a job that I found distasteful.

“Matt, Michelle, I have a fun thing for you to do!” I called them over with an overly exaggerated excitement. “Oh you are going to like this.” I said slyly. They reacted just like I thought they would with a wiggly enthusiasm that I was counting on. I gave them each an old cup and we went to the sink where I instructed them to put enough water in the cup to fill it a third of the way and to put a squirt of dish washing liquid into each cup. I told them that they were going Japanese beetle hunting and the soap would keep the "bugs" from getting away.

I explained how they were going to have to use all their sneakiness and creep up on the plants that were infested with those iridescent copper-colored beetles that are so destructive and plentiful. Then I instructed them to hold the cup under the beetles and then touch them lightly. Japanese beetles just fall to the ground or fly away when they were disturbed. The kids easily saw how they could catch many beetles with little effort.

They set to work and craftily caught many Japanese beetles each over a number of days, but there seemed to be more beetles than they could handle. I called the county extension service to ask why I was getting so many. It turned out that I was inadvertently attracting thousands of them to my house. How was I doing that? With those green and yellow Japanese beetle traps that I had set up all over. They were attracting every Japanese beetle in more than a mile circumference from my house. I quickly took the traps down and threw them away.

But the beetles still came and the kids were getting antsy, they were getting tired of this game. What I didn’t know was that the kids themselves were attracting the beetles. They had a dumping ground for the beetles instead of throwing them into the trash bags like I asked them to. The dead were sending off a foul smell that for some reason was as attractive to the live beetles as the traps were.

The mystery solved, we were able to get the Japanese beetle situation under control. Matt and Michelle ended up getting a special treat that they so deserved. And my plants flourished without the destructive eating machines around to chomp down their leaves and flowers.

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