Japanese beetle attack!

I've been battling Japanese beetles everyday for the past week. They are attacking our Yoshino and Kwanzan cherry trees with a vengeance. One Yoshino cherry dropped a lot of its top leaves and hasn't attracted many beetles since. Did the tree make itself somehow less attractive? It still has a lot of leaves until about 3/4 of the way to the top. The other one that didn't drop any leaves still attracts oodles of beetles.

Since I'm trying to limit my use of pesticides I'm using the old squash 'em technique using your fingers or step and drag method if they've fallen to the ground. Trouble is these supposedly dumb critters have their own evasive technique, the "bailout". As soon as you try to grab 'em they fall a short way and take off flying so I miss many if I try to use the squash 'em method. I've resorted to using a sprayer with water and a surfactant-fancy name for soap/detergent. If I make the solution strong enough about a full tablespoon in a quart of water, it seems to kill or at least stun the buggers and they just sit there not doing much. I think this works because they drown. The surfactant allows the water to wet the beetle's abdomen and work its way into the breathing spicules so they drown even if not immersed in water. I found this remedy because I used it on ants and they died instantly. The spray lets me get to the beetles high in the golden rain tree flowers which they favor, even more than the cherries.

And gosh are they randy. Twosomes, threesomes and more-an orgy.

I was walking in our neighborhood park and noticed that the tops of linden trees and sassafras were almost denuded. This has been an especially bad year for jb infestation. I've never seen it quite this bad. Well they seem to be on the wane now and hopefully will be only a bad memory in a week or two.

Someone mentioned using milky spore to good effect. Said they hardly had any beetles at all. Apparently you apply it early in spring and it affects the larvae. They don't pupate. I may try it next year. But what about those that fly in from neigboring untreated yards?

One year I tried using a trap. Never again! We must have attracted every beetle within the whole township. What a mistake. The beetles were swarming all over the bushes where the trap was hanging and only a small fraction actually made it into the trap. We caught maybe 20 beetles the whole time the darned thing was hanging. Later, I heard that you should hang the trap as far away from your yard as possible preferably in some mean neighbor's yard-just kidding. They should change the name from trap to attractant. How about some truth in advertising.