An adult emerald ash borer. The bug's actual size is about that of a penny. Click photo for larger image. Where to take your beetles Homeowners who suspect they have found emerald ash borers in ash trees on their property are encouraged to capture an adult beetle, place it in a container of rubbing alcohol, and take it to the Penn State Cooperative Extension Office in their county. Do not transport live beetles, and be sure to record the exact location of the tree where the insect was collected. Here are extension office addresses: Butler County, 101 Motor Pool Way, Butler. Online: butler.extension.psu.edu/ Lawrence County, 430 Court St., Courthouse, New Castle. lawrence.extension.psu.edu/ Beaver County, 2020 Beaver Ave., Suite 200. Monaca. beaver.extension.psu.edu/ Allegheny County, 400 N. Lexington Ave., Pittsburgh. allegheny.extension.psu.edu/ Pennsylvania's quarantine restricts the movement of ash nursery stock, green lumber and any other ash material, including logs, stumps, roots and branches, and all wood chips. Because of the difficulty in distinguishing species of hardwood firewood, all hardwood firewood -- including ash, oak, maple and hickory -- is considered quarantined.
	J.D. Pooley, Associated Press
	Feeding larvae create a serpentine gallery on a tree in Whitehouse, Ohio, in this 2003 photo. Click photo for larger image.

Representatives of the state's agriculture and forestry departments are urging residents who suspect they have emerald ash borers in their trees to collect the insects in an effort to determine the extent of the beetle's destructive infestation.

Four counties -- Allegheny, Butler, Beaver and Lawrence -- were placed under a quarantine last week when the first signs of the insect were found off an interstate highway exit in Cranberry. Since then, state officials have been combing through a five-mile circle around that site, collecting, counting and tracking the pest that could wipe out Pennsylvania's ash tree population within 12 years.

Sven-Erik Spichiger, an entomologist with the state Department of Agriculture, said once that survey is finished, officials will decide what steps will be taken to curb the beetle's spread.

Some of the options -- like clear-cutting thousands of ash trees -- are drastic.

Greg Hoover, an entomologist at Penn State University who is involved in the intergovernmental project, yesterday said homeowners in the four affected counties need to do two things: Keep an eye out for the bright green, half-inch beetle and collect them if possible. And everyone, he said, needs to follow the quarantine's restrictions on the transportation of ash tree material and hardwood firewood.

"It's not really the time to consider specific management tactics yet," he said. "We're still trying to determine the extent of the infestation."

The search for the insects -- on the ground and possibly from the air -- is just part of the action plan state authorities completed in March 2006 after they realized that the Asian beetle, first found in Michigan in 2002, had spread into neighboring states and was inevitably headed for Pennsylvania.

Homeowners, he said, can help determine its spread.

"Folks that are suspicious that they may have observed an emerald ash borer in their back yard or wherever they might be, they need to capture that adult," he said. "These things have chewing mouth parts, but there's no reason to think that they're going to sting or bite because they're so small.

"They have to be killed by placing them in a container filled with rubbing alcohol before they're transported. A baby food jar or an aspirin bottle would do quite nicely. But they have to be dead. We don't want to run the risk of them spreading further."

Captured emerald ash borers should be taken to the Penn State cooperative extension office in the county where they are found.

"Photographs of the insects aren't very helpful," Mr. Hoover said. "We need the specimens."

A jar can contain more than one beetle, he said, if all the beetles in it are collected from the same tree. And the labeling of the find is important.

"If a specimen comes to us from Washington, Westmoreland, Centre County or whatever it might be, we need to have that evidence," he said.

As far as fighting the beetle is concerned, experts said, there is still no sure way to kill it. Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and Maryland have lost more than 20 million ash trees and have spent millions in state and federal money on options ranging from cutting down trees to introducing predatory wasps. But the bug's spread has continued.

Rich Vrboncic, manager of the Crafton office of the Connecticut-based Bartlett Tree Experts, said he has heard from numerous homeowners wanting to save their ash trees. There are chemicals, he said, that might preserve individual trees, but he is telling people to be patient.

"We're advising against treatments until we find out what the USDA decides they want to do," he said. "Don't do anything until you find out how big the circle is that they're going to draw in which they eradicate all the ash trees inside it. You don't want to treat a tree that the feds are going to order eradicated because it's in that target zone."

And even if individual trees can be saved, he said, there's little that can be done to protect ash trees in the wild.

"It's like Dutch elm disease," he said. "You can treat a tree or two in the yard, but you can't treat all the trees in the forest."

Mr. Spichiger said researchers continue to work on a way to kill the insect.

"I know there are trials that are being done here and in China," he said. "But when you use a pesticide in Pennsylvania, it has to be labeled for use on a given pest and on a given host. And nothing meets that description right now."

Treatments, such as annually saturating the soil at a tree's base with a chemical called imidicloprid, have been tried in other infested states. But the process can be so expensive as to be prohibitive. For property owners, it may be more cost-effective to remove and replace the tree.