On my daily patrol of the winter squash plants this morning I came upon a freshly hatched batch of squash bugs. They were so new they were still in their green instar and hadn't grayed up yet. Since I carry duct tape for just this purpose, I made a circle of it and captured them along with eggs. Last year they showed up in May so that's been a fortunate thing being without them this long.
There was just one other egg mass on the same leaf and one other on only one other leaf. Got 'em. Soooo much easier keeping them in check that trying to get rid of them after the fact.
One thing about using the duct tape to remove eggs. It gets some but not others. Some kinds of bugs have a tougher "glue" I guess. Or maybe the eggs that come off easy are fresher and not dried on good yet. But it's real good for capturing wads of young 'uns.
