A type of insect is eating my daylilies. There are literally swarms of them
inhabiting my daylily plants. They ate the leaves and left jagged edges all
over them; the most severely eaten plants turned brown and shriveled down to
the ground.

I looked up this insect in my gardening book but I could not find it mentioned
as a threat to daylilies. It looks like a small beetle, with two yellow stripes
running down the length of its body. I tried pyrethrine for a week and it did
not work; I tried Spectricide and diatomaceous earth and they also failed. I
was so desperate I turned to Ortho's Bug be Gone today and sprayed it on the
daylilies, at the recommendation of our local nursery.

I felt so guilty about this because Bug be Gone contains diazinon which is
toxic to everything on the planet. What can I use to solve this problem, while
minimizing the effect on other insects and birds in my backyard?

Jeff