Pest Control

I bet you thought this was going to be something about shooting marauding flying monkeys or some such. Bummer dudes, it's about Japanese Beetles.

The pests are attracted by anything with a fragrance, plus anything they land on and eat as their droppings have an odor that attracts more of them. First part of summer, the raspberries were protected by the Linden tree whose flowers attracted the beetles. It also appeared that eating linden flowers was bad for the bugs.

One of the neighborhood gardeners on the next block has chickens who think Japanese Beetles are a form of candy. He put the bait portion of a beetle trap into the top of a piece of PVC pipe, and hung it so the bottom ended at a partially covered tin pan. The beetles fly to the bait, fall down the pipe and  hit the tin pan with a "plink" . The pan is located in the chicken coop. It never requires any cleaning.