box elder bugs and wasp.

[johnson1942]

every late fall it is same old story in western nebraska and eastern wyoming. box elder bugs and wasp trying to invade every house in the county. i have no idea how they get in but i and the cat try to kill our share every day. anybody else have them or is it just here?

[richhodg66]

Have them real bad at our other house where we have several maple trees in the yard.

Get a big spray bottle and fill it with some water with a little dish soap dissolved in it. The detergent in the dish soap changes the surface tension of the water such that they breathe it in and drown in short order when you spray it on them and it's only soapy water, no poisons.

[GaryN]

Lots of them here in Utah. I heard they eat box elder seeds so last year I went around and cut down everyone of them on my property and some others nearby. It did make a difference. But there are still a bunch left.

[Omega]

Better those than all these stink bugs out here. I try and keep the perimeter and all the cracks sprayed to keep them out but they still manage to get in alive. Even with the electric fly swatter they manage to stink up the room.

[Taylor]

I thought I was the only one with a stink bug issue.

I picked up my friend to go hunting yesterday..I told him I didn't smell a stink bug 'til he got in.Later on I found one on the dash and on the outside mirror.BTW he denied it was him.

Yeah...they are every where.

[chsparkman]

We have a ridiculous number of stink bugs here in northern Virginia. I haven't heard of any good way to keep them at bay. We don't want to smash them and stink the place up, so all we can do is catch them and throw them back outside or flush them down the toilet. Any real solutions out there?

[runfiverun]

well since your in the south you should figure out a deep fried recipe for them and put it on facebook.
I think within a year or two they will be on the endangered species list.
:kidding:

[44man]

We used to have tons of box elder bugs but they have gone away, replaced by stink bugs. Have not been as bad this year. How they get in is a mystery, even my attic is full of them.
Had a window conditioner in the garage for the dogs and it was full. Once in a while one got in the fan.
Both kinds of the bugs winter under the siding, when the sun is up, they crawl out.
One year they were so bad my gutters were full and a huge flock of starlings landed all over the house and ate a ton. I guess birds can't smell good.

[johnson1942]

glad we dont have your stickbugs here. one thing about the box elder tress most people dont know. they are a type of maple tree. in the spring the sap in a boxelder tree flows better than a suger maple. ive seen large old boxelder trees with a 1/2 inch 6 inch long pipe drove into the base, run sap like their was a water pipe connected behind it. once up in n.dak at the federal park in the bad lands in the spring their was three trees next to the parking lot with those pipes in the base and the ground was covered in we tree sap.the natives made syrup from them that was just as good as the syrup from sugar maple. i dont have any box elder trees on my place but i sure have the bugs. i dont know what it is about western ne. but the wasp are nuts every wheres. in church last sunday they were buzzing every one.

[GhostHawk]

My father in law in Brookings SD struggled with boxelder bugs for years before they finally gave up, sold the homestead and moved to town.

I've seen drifts of bugs one inch deep in between windows on the second floor. They would get in that far but could not get in further. There they would be.

[jmort]

Not sure about the Box Elders, but we have so many wasps, yellow jackets and hornets and horse flies to defy belief here in the Ozarks.

[Boolit_Head]

Have them real bad at our other house where we have several maple trees in the yard.

Get a big spray bottle and fill it with some water with a little dish soap dissolved in it. The detergent in the dish soap changes the surface tension of the water such that they breathe it in and drown in short order when you spray it on them and it's only soapy water, no poisons.

Ivory dish soap works best. The surfactant in it will drop Red Wasps in their tracks. Picked that up from a friend who was a volunteer fireman. We used to live in the hill country where the red wasps were heavy. They would congregate on the eves of my cedar sided house every evening. I used to take a silver fire extinguisher with water and Ivory and spray them. That was the only way I could control them since the House was a story and a half and the eaves were very high. None of the commercial spray cans would reach that high.

[firefly1957]

I have both here in Michigan as well and add an invasion
by Asian beetles too!

[William Yanda]

Here in Western New York, half way between the Bills and the Orangemen, we have a mild infestation of the Box Elder Beetles. We have no Box Elder trees, but do have Maples in the yard.

[Randy Bohannon]

Bug A Salt 2.0 entertaining whacks'em good.

[xs11jack]

Speaking of wasps, I was working with a friend Saturday and a flying bug I have never seen before landed near us. It was a good inch or inch and a quarter long, big wide wings, and a redish abdomen. Darn scary critter, what is it???
Ole Jack in Missouri

[leeggen]

Middle Tn. is coverd with boxelder trees. We get the bugs and the tabacco half breed ladybugs. Sometimes we find a big gob of ladybug/chinesse bettles in the wood shed about midwinter.
CD

[MaryB]

Asian lady beetles and boxelder bugs are bad here. I hit the switch on the corn vacuum system and the corn line was full of them. I sucked in a gallon ice cream pail full that I had to dump outside because they DO stink! I need to check that line for a hole in one of the taped joints... I use tape in case of a plug in an elbow by a large piece of stalk or cob...

[MT Gianni]

Box Elder bugs eat the Box Elder seeds of the Female tree. We had one in a former house and paid an arborist about $1 a foot of tree to have the seeds killed after the sap had risen and before the seeds set, maybe a three week window. It cut down on bugs big time but if there is a tree in 1/2 mile radius you will get them. Find out how they are coming to your house, they walk not fly, and spray a concoction of chewing tobacco across the path. About one package of leaf or brick chew to 2 gallons of water. Strain and run through a spray bottle. The nicotine will poison them quickly as they crawl across it.

[Omega]

Middle Tn. is coverd with boxelder trees. We get the bugs and the tabacco half breed ladybugs. Sometimes we find a big gob of ladybug/chinesse bettles in the wood shed about midwinter.
CDWho you telling, I have been trying to get rid of these asian beatles for a few years now. They infest my hunting trailer and my stand, my trailer worse of all. But again, glad they are not stink bugs! Here I swept them toward the door and out, this is before I knew the suckers were only dormant. Now I vacuum them and toss them in a bag.

179459

179460

[Blackwater]

Bugs of any kind can be a plague. Here in the south, near the coast, it's skeeters. After the fringe hit by the hurricane, their numbers have increased greatly, and we've got some really large ones now that I hadn't been seeing. Mostly the little black ones that have no buzz, so you can't hear them and react. You're bittenn and they're gone before you know they're there. Itches like crazy for a while, but then tapers off, thank goodness. Some of the big ones can really hurt! But they have enough "buzz" about them that it's hard to sneak in unnoticed.

Just know the fish and bats and other insect eaters are getting fat on them. At least you have that satisfaction. Fish eat the larvae stage of skeeters, but after that, they pretty much have no enemies here, except mosquito hawks. I've noted we've got a growing population of those now, too. Guess they're putting on generations overtime due to the abundant food?

Insects of ANY kind can be a plague, but the stinging/biting ones are more than just a nuissance. My Mom nearly died once due to a wasp sting. Y'all be careful with those things! They kill WAY more people each year than poisonous snakes!

[44man]

My archery target is a little building, open the door and shoot. Target got weak so arrows went deep.
I went behind and kicked the back to force the arrow out more and white face hornets came boiling out, we could not get away and we had welts for a long time. Nasty things.

[randyrat]

Find TEMPO WP (don't use on a dark surface will leave a residue) or TEMPO SC and use 4mls to 8mls per gallon of water. Spray the exterior of your building top to bottom or just the cracks for you Organic types. I would spray any nearby Box Elder trees also, as this will reduce box Elder bugs.... This will kill most insects and has a residual of 30-60 days..High heat, Sun light and moisture will break down to nothing quicker than in dry cool climates.

DON'T breath it in or get it on your skin or eyes. Cover your exposed skin and use a respirator or you will suffer for 24 hours.

You can buy this stuff - on line or at farm implement dealers, feed mills etc..

Soapy water using Dawn will work "on contact" but no lasting residual

[johnson1942]

i believe some one said tenn. is full of boxelder trees. those who have them and want to make their own way for food are missing a free food source for really good maple syrup. boxelder flow heavy in the spring and the juice makes wonderful maple syrup. think about it.

[44man]

I don't know how the tube is used. I have many box elder trees. I want to learn how to tap a tree.

[johnson1942]

what i saw in a federal park in the badlands of n. dak was this. their were three big old boxelder trees next to the parking lot. the rangers had taken a 1/2 inch diam galvnized pipe and after drilling a hole into the trees with the same diam hole as the out side of the pipes, pushed the pipes into the holes. sap was not dripping out of them, it was running out of them into a puddle infront of the trees. i dont know how deep into the trees the pipes went but i saw that their was free sap to make syrup out of. i later read the sioux of n.dak. would tap boxelder trees on river bottoms and boil the juice down to syrup in big iron pots. they used to live in minn in the timber and never forgot how to do it. also you can make a rare very very expensive very good tasteing syrup out of birch sap. it cost a fortune in specialty stores. i think it comes from alaska and someone figured out how to do it up their. i have been tempted to plant boxelder trees just to tap them and as i said before, they are a type of maple.

[johnson1942]

i just went to the internet and their is a ton of info on tapping tress. the boxelder seems to flow the heaviest of all the types of trees used. they even make syrup out of walnut and hickory juice. you southerners need to get into this to pour over your wonderful corn bred every morning. that syrup has more calcium and minerals than milk plus many other things that is good for you. i also saw that every tribe of natives that had boxelder trees available used the sap in some way as food. the natives diet was high in iron and calcium. the tribes who grew corn burned the cobs and ground the ash into a powder and used that to mix into their corn meal. very very high in minerals. i know this is a bit off the first subject but a lot of you out their are into going on your own in the food sources. their you are a new wonderful source.

[MaryB]

Well I learned something new! I will have to tap the boxelders in the yard next spring! Think I have 5 of them...

[johnson1942]

this is what the you tube video said. drill the hole about 2 inches deep. drill the hole directly above a large root. if the tree is huge you can put 3 or 4 around the tree. tap the pipe into the hole. leave the pipe stick out far enough so it can go through a hole in a collection container that is hanging in front of the hole. with boxelder, check freq. as they can flow fast and hard in the spring. it showed a boxelder being tapped and it doesnt drip out it flows out on good days. when you boil the sap at a low heat down it is very tasty and very sweet. very rich in calcium and other minerals. stir and dont burn when you simmer it down to a syrup.