I've got these. I realised I had them last year when I found them
growing on the fritarillaria meleagris. I wasn't too fussed, however,
because the lilies seemed to survive, and didn't become too ragged. I
drowned the pair or two that I found.

Yesterday, however, I caught thirteen of the monsters, in a different
part of the garden (the fritarillary seem to be OK this year) and
drowned them all. I have a trough planted with lilies that I have
been meaning to replant. Not sure of the exact sub species. The
majority of the beetles that I caught were on chives, actually, but
chives that were in very close proximity to some legacy lilies that I
inherited when I bought this house, not exactly sure of the sub
species there. These lilies already have very ragged leaves. I
cannot, as yet, see any trails of eggs on the underside of the leaves.

I have been meaning to unpack and replant this trough - it is replete
with bulbils and stuff. I had been meaning to plant up some bulbils
in a smallish pot and pass them on to a friend of mine.

I would like some advice as to what I should do next. I am tempted
just to chuck all the lilies, get rid of them, no more lily beetle,
haha. I have just done fairly extensive research, and this group,
amongst others, has reccomended Provadol (?), Malthiol, and Neem.
Also, people have said that catching the beetles and larvae and
killing them eventually brings the numbers down.

What I want to do is unpack this trough of lilies, repack some of the
grand old ladies (untouched by raggedness, at leas this year), dump
the compost into land refill, along with unwanted bulbils, repack, and
then either apply Provadol (?) or Neem (malthion is a nono from having
googled on it) or just do the hunting thing, and maybe dig up and
chuck out the legacy variety that apppears to be most strongly
affected.

And I'm just wondering whether or not this appears to be a reasonable
thing to do. Am I likely to kill or reduce the infestation this way?
I caught 13 of the beetles yesterday, and one got away. With regular
inspection, and a repotting so that they are less crowded, along with
an application of a fairly beneficial insecticide for a couple of
months, am I likely to make a difference?

Glenys
--
"A Newsweek poll said if the election were held today, John Kerry
would beat Bush 49 percent to 46 percent. And today, President Bush
called Newsweek magazine a threat to world peace." Jay Leno