Frustrated gardeners send or bring pictures to the Extension office of their tomatoes, peppers and sweet corn covered with nymphs and adults of brown marmorated stink bugs. Each person was so frustrated by this bug they were ready to give up on gardening.

One gardener said they went out to their garden with a wet/dry vac and vacuumed off the insects, and then dumped the canister contents down the toilet. Actually this method is not a bad idea and some innovative person could develop a small garden vacuum that gardeners could easily handle in gardens which is lightweight and powerful enough. In entomology we have large bug vacs we use in the field to collect insects, but it would be slightly unwieldy around a vegetable garden.

Adult stink bugs are very active and starting to show up in and around houses at this point in the summer. The best thing you can do is vacuum them up inside. This fall, Zodiac Company is supposed to have an EPA label (sometime early this fall) for an ester form of a pyrethroid that will have a label for homeowners to use inside houses for BMSB and bedbugs.

Keep in mind, even though this will kill the bugs you will still have to sweep or vacuum them up after they are dead. Why not just use a vac and vacuum them up and skip the insecticide application? Still, people seem to like to spray bugs and I am sure this product will sell well once in the marketplace.

Source: University of Maryland Extension