Spotted Lanternfly is found across the state, and in areas where they are just beginning to be seen, their numbers will increase for a few years before likely decreasing again as more predators learn to eat them (birds, other insects, lizards, toads, etc.). They do not form nests, and you can learn about their one-year life cycle in the linked page.

They suck plant sap through straw-like mouthparts, but they do not cause serious or noticeable damage to plants, even when abundant. The only exception is vineyards, which can use control measures to keep them at bay. We do not recommend any spraying be used to combat lanternfly, including home remedies, which can not only fail to work well, but damage plants and the environment. (Penn State has a good article about why home remedy pesticides, such as sprays using household vinegar or soap/detergent are not a good idea.)

Exposed sticky traps like tape/adhesive used for lanternfly can injure birds and trap other harmless animals. Instead, if you feel you must do something, you can construct a "circle trap" to more selectively catch lanternfly while excluding other species. You can find a link to that resource from Penn State in the lanternfly web page above.

Wineberry is a very common, non-native invasive raspberry relative that typically grows along woodland edges, but it's not any more attractive to lanternfly than many other plants. (We don't have wild raspberries in Maryland, although we do have wild blackberries.) Spotted Lanternfly's primary host plant is the equally-invasive Tree-of-Heaven.

There is no way to eliminate Spotted Lanternfly from the landscape, either short-term or long-term. Any pesticide used can harm other species, because no chemical is specific to just lanternfly. They can be a nuisance when abundant, and a threat to vineyards in particular, but otherwise they are not as big of an ecological threat as they were feared to be when first detected in our region over a decade ago.

Miri

Thanks.   The soap spray, I figured was the least harmful.   They were jumping into our pool in large numbers and my killing them at the oak has cut that way, way down. The duct tape really hasn’t caught anything!   It did cause the lantern fly nymphs to gather below it, so spraying was very, very effective.   I do hope birds start to love them as much as we hate them!

 

Carolyn 

It will take some wildlife a little while to get used to eating them, because the insects bear typical nature "warning colors" about being distasteful (a prominent pattern of red, black, and white). They are probably only distasteful when they've fed on Tree-of-Heaven sap, however, so those feeding on other plants are probably fine for a variety of birds and other animals to eat. Once they learn to associate this insect's appearance with its edibility, more should fall prey to birds and other predators.

Miri