Japanese beetles -- Round 2

At first I thought they were pretty, now I hate them. When the Japanese beetles graduated from eating raspberry leaves to eating the fruit, I was willing to give some of it up because we had a bumper crop. But then they moved onto the roses. They especially love the white, pink, or yellow large-flowered hybrid tea roses, on which they seem to conduct mating orgies that involve devouring the entire rose.

I take my revenge by cutting the flower head and quickly submersing it (and the mass of beetles) in a container of soapy water to watch them drown. Soap seems to dissolve whatever cuticle lipids they have that allow them to float to safety. Soapy water kills them - yea! But, looking more closely I found that some sank immediately and others floated up at the boundary of the soapy foam. Why the disparity? What made some sink? Any ideas to explain the difference?

The birch trees are losing a lot of their top leaves to Japanese beetles as well. If you've noticed brown skeletal remains of leaves around your trees this summer, it's probably due to a JB infestation.

We need a very cold winter with no snow cover to kill off the larvae that will be developing in our lawns. I never thought I would wish for that!