Keep Stink Bugs Out of Your Home and Garden
These bugs are pretty easy to ID as stink bugs, but if you want to be sure about the one you found, look at the edge of the abdomen. “Marmorated” means veined or marbled. At the thinner outer rim of the abdomen, the colors will alternate from dark to light, like stripes. Light stripes are also found on the antennae and the legs.
There are many other stink bugs, some of which are native to North America. Check out this Field Guide from Virginia Cooperative Extension for information on identifying BMSB and other look-alikes. (If you find close-up pictures of insects creepy, maybe skip it!)
Signs of Stink Bugs
Stink bugs are large enough to notice when walking about in your garden or orchard. They are about the size of a fingernail. Keep an eye out for grey-brown bugs on your tomatoes, peppers, corn, beans, and fruit trees. Check the undersides of leaves for egg masses as well.
Look for these signs of stink bugs:
- Adult BMSB on leaves or fruit, or in your house.
- Nymphs are more brightly colored than adults, with orange, red, and black markings.
- Leaf stippling: damage is smaller than a pencil eraser at each site.
- Masses of light-green or pale yellow eggs on the undersides of leaves from May through August, sometimes in groups of 20-30.
- Small, off-color, soft, or spongy areas on fruit. The tissue inside may be discolored.
Andy Wilcox
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Are these the ones that smell like cut grass when smashed?
I use a clear plastic tube (The kind that certain toys come in) put about 2 inches of water and mix with dish soap and catch and drown them. They fall right in when put under them outside the house. I've killed hundreds that way.
Phil Holderby
I really hope whoever brought them over has not gotten a minute’s peace! Every time I turn my heater on in my car I smell it, they terrorized my tomatoes, they’re in the house, it sounds like you’re being dive-bombed by a 747! 😡
First seen in 1998? I don't understand that. I'm in my mid-40's and saw them all the time when I was growing up in south Mississippi.
I'm 63 and live in Michigan. Stink Bugs have been around since I was very young, way before 1998!
Perhaps it was a similar looking but different species? While this article is specifically about BMSBs, I don't doubt there are many such stink bugs that are natives to the States. I've been seeing the green ones all my life.
Oh yeah, here, at the beginning of the article:
"There are a few native stink bug species, but we are mainly focusing on the non-native brown marmorated stink bug, Halyomorpha halys, which is a significant garden and agricultural pest."
You can also flush down the toilet 🚽 they can't swim 🏊 those stinkbugs.
Come to North Carolina...they are every where....thousands.... i killed 50 plus Saturday trying to get in my storage shed and house. I have taken to waiting on COLD weather [freezing] and then bomb my sheds in effort to control...I have reduced population some what but it is and every day fight and esp. during this month [Oct] when they seek shelter....If you have a fire place they will hide in the chimney due to heat going up...so in December build a fire to kill em. They love attic space and stack of old sheets and blankets if you keep them for frost protection for your early garden They will hide in florescent light fixtures left on . Any place that provides protection from freezing weather....They are a menace of great importance..kill them. I have watch them 'walk' across sticky traps, so that does not work and 7 dust will not kill them as they have become 'mutated' resistant. the best I have found is hornet and wasp spray, it reaches high places and will kill them, but be careful about where you spray so not to harm beneficial like spiders.
Surprisingly, I have seen very few stinkbugs the last two years. Seems the Lantern Fly population has declined in my immediate area too.
I'm in SE PA.
