Blister beetles

I did a search, couldn’t find any info on blister beetles. I also didn’t know if I should ask this here, or in the insect thread, sorry if this is not the place!
Anyone having trouble with blister beetles? A swarm of the yellow & brown striped beetles has shown up in my garden. They look like they are headed everywhere… Peppers, flowers, melons, Toms, Kale, etc. I dusted with permethrin, but the area is too big to dust everything. An extension bulletin recommend Triazacide Spectracide… I have a jug that is several years old, but will probably spray this evening after the pollinators are in bed. What works for you all and is there hope they won’t decimate the entire garden?

“In mid and late summer, they can arrive in swarms, seemingly overnight and because of their numbers, will do great damage in a short time.”

The good news is that even a low-level insecticide such as Pyrethrin will knock them out.

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Thank you Richard. I find I have the most trouble being thorough, getting underneath, the stems, and leaves of every plant where they like to hide. I don’t have enough pesticide to cover everything! I found a bunch hiding under the moss roses too. They scurried too fast for me to squish, so hopefully they will be congregated there when I return with my sprayer. :confounded:

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We never had lots of them as far as I can tell, yet once one of them came off a plant I was looking at and it bit me. I knew a bug came off the plant on to me, yet I did not realize it bit me until I found the blister on me. I looked on the internet and found out what it was that bit me.

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I haven’t been bitten, but I read they will raise quite a bad welt or blister. I wore gloves when I was spraying tonight and squished a bunch of them.

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You stated it was an aging bottle. I’d check tomorrow morning to see if it was effective :slightly_smiling_face:.

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Yep, I am going to check in the morning and hope I find a lot of dead bugs!
I will have to get some more liquid pesticides. Right now I only have powder form and that is hard for me to spread. The bulb duster I have is essentially worthless and frustrating to try use.

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