RESCUE! BugBlog

Breaking the stink bug cycle

So you had a stink bug invasion inside your house this past fall, winter and spring. Now that it's nearly summer, you're not seeing them anymore. Has the problem gone away? 

Hardly. If any adult stink bugs were inside your house this spring, they have: 1) died inside the house; and/or 2) found their way back outside to mate and lay eggs.

It's the second possibility you need to be concerned about. The population of stink bugs outside your home could multiply exponentially this summer. An adult female stink bug can lay 20-30 eggs in a mass and as many as 400 eggs in a season. Usually, there are two generations that survive in a season. So from that single stink bug, you could potentially have hundreds more later on.

So, even though stink bugs may be out of sight to you this summer where your house interior is concerned, don't let them be out of mind. By using the RESCUE! Stink Bug Trap outdoors in July, August and September, you can break their breeding cycle and put a dent in the problem. Any number of stink bugs you can catch is significant.

Where can you purchase them? A complete list is coming soon on our web site... stay tuned!

RESCUE! offers both outdoor and indoor solution for stink bugs

For all of you who are seeing stink bugs on your toothbrush, or discovering dozens a day inside your home, help is on the way!

In addition to our forthcoming outdoor Stink Bug Trap, RESCUE!^® unveiled an indoor solution for stink bugs last week at the 2011 National Hardware Show in Las Vegas.

Available in July 2011, the RESCUE!^® Stink Bug Trap works outdoors to intercept adult stink bugs before they enter homes, as well as the younger generations that damage gardens and fruit trees. The trap lures multiple species of pest stink bugs with pheromone attractants that are odor-free to humans.

The reusable trap comes with a 2-week attractant supply and has a suggested retail price of $19.99. A 7-week attractant refill will be sold separately for around $9.99 retail.

When stink bugs venture inside homes to overwinter as summer turns to fall, RESCUE!^® has a trap for that as well. With a light accessory that retails around $17.99, the same RESCUE!^® Stink Bug Trap can be used indoors. The blue LED light attachment plugs into a wall outlet and illuminates the trap to draw stink bugs when they are active inside the home.

Once stink bugs are trapped either outdoors or indoors, they dehydrate inside the trap chamber for easy, odor-free disposal and reuse. 

The stink bug has been called a “terrorist bug”; its spread deemed a “national crisis”. It has received major media attention since September 2010 when its populations exploded in the U.S.. RESCUE!^® is the first established lawn & garden product manufacturer to offer an answer to the growing problem.

Stink Bugs damage fruit, vegetables and farm crops – but when they invade the indoors in colder weather, they really raise a stink. With no effective natural enemies, stink bugs have been discovered in 33 states to this point – most recently in Michigan and Iowa.

Outdoor testing of the RESCUE!^® Stink Bug Trap was conducted at the USDA’s 800-acre facility in Beltsville, MD. RESCUE!^® designed both the trap and the controlled-release technology for the pheromones, enabling the attractants to last over a number of weeks and lure stink bugs from a 30-foot radius.

RESCUE!^® became aware of this pest in 2002, as a result of working with university and federal researchers who saw a stink bug infestation as having potential to be a significant problem in the U.S.. When the stink bug population exploded in late summer/fall 2010, the R&D Department took its knowledge gained from these years of research to come up with a retail product to trap these pests.

Established in 1982, parent company Sterling International, Inc. sells its RESCUE!^® traps and attractants for wasps, hornets, yellowjackets, flies, Japanese beetles and Oriental beetles through home improvement centers, hardware stores and lawn & garden retailers throughout the U.S. and beyond. The traps are manufactured in the USA at Sterling’s headquarters in Spokane, Washington.

 

 

Where the stink bugs are...

Curious about which states have the worst stink bug problem?

This graphic maps out the states where stink bugs have been detected, the states where stink bugs are a nuisance, and the "red zone" states where stink bugs are at crazy, tear-your-hair-out, burn-down-the-house and hunt-down-the-person-who-brought-them-here levels.

Which level of infestation are you experiencing?

 

A "Stink Bug-pocalypse?"

All signs and news stories like this one are pointing to a stink bug plague of "biblical proportions" this year. Is this overly dramatic? Perhaps. But when your home -- your sanctuary -- is threatened by these smelly pests, it doesn't take that many to make you pull your hair out.

Some readers have said they are killing 40-50 a day in their homes. This gentleman claims to have killed over 12,000 of them in his Maryland farmhouse.  

What about you? We want to hear more about your stink bug situation where you live. Please share with us below... or better yet, on our Facebook page, where we occasionally post contests and give away prizes!

Is Pittsburgh the epicenter of the stink bug invasion?

What's happening in Pittsburgh to make stink bugs such a hot topic? Looks like a warming trend where daytime temps reached the 60s this past week is playing a role in stirring up these stinky specimens. The adult bugs are getting restless inside the houses where they found shelter when the weather turned colder last fall.

Thanks to this Post-Gazette blog post, this Post-Gazette article, this WPXI-TV news story, and this one on KDKA-TV, we're getting an extraordinary response from western Pennsylvania for our Stink Bug Trap. Retailers in the area are on it, too, letting us know they're hot to get the product on their shelves!

We know that inside the house, stink bugs respond to light and seek moisture. When they are disturbed or threatened, they emit a chemical defensive secretion. In lay terms, they stink!

Whether it's flushing them down the toilet, vacuuming them (which causes that chemical defense) or dunking them in a water/dish soap mixture, people are getting by with home remedies for now because there is no effective extermination method.

The good news is that these overwintering adults will start to leave the house when spring's warmer temperatures hit.

We wish it were sooner, folks, but help is on the way... Hang on for the RESCUE! Stink Bug Trap, coming July 2011!

Western PA heralds RESCUE! Stink Bug Trap arrival

Folks in western Pennsylvania are among those anticipating the arrival of the RESCUE! Stink Bug Trap on store shelves, thanks to Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reporter Doug Oster's blog post, article, and Sunday morning show on KDKA-AM.

Busy Beaver will carry the RESCUE! Stink Bug Trap at all of their locations in western PA and eastern Ohio. Other known retailers in that region are Agway in Greensburg, PA; Best Feeds Garden Center in Gibsonia, PA; and Martin's Flowers & Shrubs in Belle Vernon, PA.

This list will grow; check back for more retail locations in the coming months!

More about the RESCUE! Stink Bug Trap

A comment on our last blog post brought up some good points and questions about the product that we want to answer here.

Q: Will the Stink Bug Trap attract more stink bugs onto your property that wouldn't ordinarily be there?

A: No. The RESCUE! Stink Bug Trap will catch stink bugs within a 20-foot radius. It will attract the bugs that are already in your yard and prevent them from damaging your garden or getting in your house. All of our RESCUE! traps work this way, in fact -- it's a misconception to believe that they lure insects from all over the neighborhood.

Q: Will the trap work indoors?

A: No, the trap is intended for use outdoors to prevent the stink bugs from doing damage in your garden or getting inside your house. Once stink bugs are inside your house, they do not respond to the pheromone lures. If our testing leads us to a solution for catching stink bugs indoors, we will most certainly share that.

Q: Some stink bugs are beneficial. Will the trap catch them along with the pests?

A: We recognize that some stink bugs, like the Spined Soldier Bug, are beneficial. The RESCUE! Stink Bug Trap will catch the stink bugs that are pests and leave the beneficial insects alone.

Keep your questions coming!

Got a Stink Bug problem? Thanks to RESCUE!, there's a trap for that!

(tap, tap, tap) Is this thing on?

Just checking the microphone and sound system since we haven't broadcast anything here in a while.

We're back... with big news. Many of you have asked us about a solution for stink bugs. Since last September, they've received major media attention when their numbers exploded in the U.S. The stink bug has been called a "terrorist bug" by Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD) and its spread was deemed a "national crisis" in a letter written by Bartlett and 14 other members of Congress.

Just five months later, a solution has emerged: the RESCUE! Stink Bug Trap from Sterling International.

(So, does this mean that we can say "RESCUE! solves national crisis"? I like the sound of that headline!)

Stink Bugs damage fruit, vegetables and farm crops -- but when they invade the indoors in colder weather, they really raise a stink. With no natural predators, stink bugs have been discovered in 30 states to this point. Michigan was added to the list last week.

Available for shipments in July 2011, the RESCUE! Stink Bug Trap works outdoors to catch adult stink bugs before they enter homes, as well as the younger generations that damage gardens and fruit trees. The trap lures multiple species of stink bugs with pheromone attractants that are odor-free to humans.

The reusable trap comes with a 2-week attractant supply and is expected to be priced at $19.99 retail. A 7-week attractant refill will be sold separately for $9.99 retail.

Testing of the RESCUE! Stink Bug Trap was conducted at the USDA's 800-acre facility in Beltsville, MD. Sterling designed both the trap and the controlled-release technology for the pheromone. Though difficult and expensive to produce, the pheromones will be manufactured in-house thanks to Sterling's expertise in chemical synthesis.

Established in 1982, Sterling International, Inc. sells its RESCUE! traps and attractants for wasps, hornets, yellowjackets, flies, Japanese beetles and Oriental beetles through home improvement centers, hardware stores and lawn & garden retailers throughout the U.S. and beyond. The traps are manufactured in the USA at Sterling's headquarters in Spokane, Washington.