How to Kill the Spotted Lanternfly

The Spotted Lanternfly is an invasive species of flies from China that have invaded the eastcoast of the USA and spreading rapidly. These flies are considered pests and do a lot of damage to grapevines, plants, and trees. Pennsylvania has been trying to combat the problem for the past 2 years with very little success.

Last year from Spring through mid-Fall we had a terrible time with the Spotted Lanterfly on our property. They were damaging our backyard garden, trees, flower gardens, etc. We couldn’t sit out on on our front porch or back deck with those dang flies landing all over us. On top of that, we were constantly cleaning them out of our swimming pool. We had thousands of them on our property!

We decided to make our own homemade insect killing spray to kill them and to help slow down the spread. We used a few different type’s of homemade insect killer and all of them worked. Here’s how we went about killing the Spotted Lanternfly.

1. Liquid Dish Soap Spray – Pick up a bottle of Dawn Liquid Dish Soap (while other brands work, we found that Dawn works better). Pour it into an empty spray bottle…2/3 of the way full with 1/3 tap water.

2. Apple Cider Vinegar Spray – Pick up a bottle of Apple Cider Vinegar. Pour the spray bottle 80% full with the vinegar and then top it off with tap water.

3. White Vinegar, Water & Dish Soap Spray – In a spray bottle combine together 50% White Vinegar with 30% tap water and 20% liquid dish soap.

4. Apple Cider Vinegar Lanternfly Traps – Get a pint-size glass mason jar. Add 1/3 cup of apple cider vinegar and 4 tablespoons of Dawn Liquid Dish Soap and 2-3 tablespoons of tap water. The jar should be under 1/2 cup full. Place a wide mouth canning jar funnel inside the opening of the jar. Sit these traps out on your front porch, back deck, around the swimming pool where you sit, etc. The flies will be attracted to the fragrance and fly down into the solution. The funnel prevents them from getting out and traps them inside. They will drown and die within a few minutes.

April through May is typically when you see all of the babies hatching from their winter hibernation. You want to get onto the problem early by killing as many babies that you can. Summer through Fall you want to go after all of the adults and kill every single one that you see.

We take regular patrols around our front and backyards seeking them out and killing the ones that we find. By going after them (instead of them coming after us) we’ve dramatically decreased their infestation population on our property. I think the pests will be a problem for years, if not decades to come. Instead of using harsh pesticides and chemicals…we’ve opted for a more natural approach to killing them.

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