Stink Bugs: Next Biblical Bug Invasion?

By: David W Freeman
Topics: News ,; Kids and family

Brown marmorated stink bug (USDA photo)

(CBS) Stink bugs are invading the Eastern U.S.

The shield-shaped insects don't bite, but they decimate crops and infest homes - and the brown marmorated stink bug certainly lives up to its name.

Authorities in Pennsylvania are calling the bug invasion there an epidemic.

"This is definitely the worst year for them that we've seen," Linda Hyatt, a horticulture program assistant for Penn State University's cooperative extension service told the Valley News Dispatch.

In Maryland, the bugs are eating their way through orchards.

One grower there, Bob Black, said the "little armored tanks" have cost him 20 percent of his apple crop this year, according to MyFoxDC.com.

And the bugs - which measure less than an inch - have also been found chomping down on corn, soybeans, and other crops in other Eastern states, according to entomologists at Penn State College of Agricultural Sciences.

What to do if your home becomes infested with the smelly critters? The entomologists advise against the use of pesticides. Instead, they recommend collecting living and dead bugs using a vacuum cleaner.

If you collect enough, they say, you might notice a bad odor coming from your vacuum cleaner.

That stinks.

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by karma27 April 4, 2011 6:44 PM EDT: Last year I had tons of stink bugs in my house, and worse, in my garden! A large part of my garden was destroyed by them. I am not looking forward to this spring and summer... and the fall won't be any better with them looking to hide in my house. I am using the plan from http://www.how-to-get-rid-of-stink-bugs.com/ to fight them of with great success, but I would still like to see the wasp brought over to combat them; Reply to this comment


by newsterI September 30, 2010 12:13 PM EDT: by Lifeson2112 September 29, 2010 3:06 PM EDT
No, global warming is just a scare tactic used by liberal politicians to grab more power and make more money. Earth's climate naturally flucuates up and down all on its own."

NOT LIKE THIS AND SO FAST!
Climate has not changed like this, this fast, photos of formerly year-round snow capped mountain ranges now bare, large chunks of glaciers and polar ice gone, valleys once hidden by glacial ice now seen for the first time, Greenland's ice melting at an inprecedented rate never seen before, it's all on film, photos and proven real.
Now as to the CAUSE, who knows! it doesnt much matter because whatever the cause IS, it's massive, fast moving, and far FAR beyond our ability to reverse by recycling your soda cans, turning your thermostat to 68, replacing bulbs with compact fluorescents and car pooling!

There's no way humans dont play some part in all this, you can't spew the amount of crud into the air, water and ground like we have at the rate we have for 150 years in a closed, sealed finite environment like earth and it not have SOME KIND of negative effect. Earth is like a fishbowl and were the fish in it, the water in the bowl is all there is, you chit in the water and it stays there, just like all the pollution stays in the atmosphere and environment.
We clear cut massive forests and rain forests, both of which absorb co2 and make oxygen.

Ice cores drilled out of the Greenland ice sheet a mile deep don't lie, every year's snowfall is encapsulated in layers like tree rings in trees, scientists can examine each year's layer and see exactly what the environment was like, even when volcanos erupted- the ash trapped in the ice that year. And when they measure the co2 levels and other things in the layers it is clear-cut easy and proof what the environment was like.
At no time has the co2 levels and pollution been like it has been the last 100 years and its proven facts trapped in ice.; Reply to this comment

by rf35 September 29, 2010 8:04 AM EDT

Anyone consider that all these recent bug population explosions are a result of global warming?

Reply to this comment


by Lifeson2112 September 29, 2010 3:06 PM EDT: No, global warming is just a scare tactic used by liberal politicians to grab more power and make more money. Earth's climate naturally flucuates up and down all on its own.


by newsterI September 30, 2010 12:05 AM EDT: nah it's da hand o gawd at work there sendin us a SIGN, perrrrrAISE jezus! da lard work miracles with da bugs to send us all a clear SIGN to repent, REPENT!