Japanese Beetles are an invasive species that are thought to have been introduced to the US via flower bulb shipments from Japan. They have infested most of the US from the East Coast to the Midwest, and their territory is spreading.

These bugs love to destroy plants by eating away at the leaves. Last year, I noticed that many of the leaves on our birch tree were dying. I walked out and found Japanese Beetles all over the thing. They were chewing holes in the leaves and leaving just the leaf's veins. Being the concerned tree-owner that I am, I decided I had better put a stop to this before they buggers killed my tree. I found several home remedies online and the one I tried appeared to work.

This year, I have been watching closely. Up until last week, I saw no evidence of these beetles in my tree, but then last night, I checked and found several of them.



As you can see, they are attacking the leaves on my tree pretty good.

Now, how can we get rid of them? Some remedies included gathering some of the bugs, blending them into bug gut paste, and squirting it on the tree. That sounded like a lot of work to me. I decided to try and bring more birds to the tree in the hopes that they would eat (or at least scare off) the beetles. So I hung a bird feeder just inside the tree.



After I did this last year, the bugs seemed to disappear. Hopefully, it was because I attracted birds to the area. I am attempting the same thing this year. I just hung the feeder last night. If the bugs go away again this year, I will consider this a good remedy. I hope to report back later with my results.

If you have other rememdies or ideas, please leave a comment.