THEY’RE BAAAAACK! They are armed with shields, and suits of armor. They are in your house, and on your food. They number in the millions. And they stink.

Not too long ago, farmers in the Mid-Atlantic region started noticing severe damage to their crops. In Maryland, 20% of their apples were eaten right off the trees. In Pennsylvania, there was damage to all kinds of crops, from soybeans to sweet corn. Soon after, folks started hearing strange sounds in their houses – a sort of random buzzing followed by the definitive “pop” of something hard landing on a lampshade, or a counter. There were things hanging out on the water faucet, or perching on the lip of a wine glass. And if you annoyed them, or tried to pick them up, they would spray a noxious odor that smells like a skunk wearing dirty socks. And that stench, some say, just attracted more of them.

Yep, it’s springtime, so here we go again: the annual invasion of the stink bugs. Halyomorpha halys, the Brown Marmorated Stink Bug, is a dime-sized, shield-shaped, tough-skinned beetle that came from China, where it is a pest. It arrived in Pennsylvania as early as 1998 and for many years was a relative nuisance. But in 2010 the stink bugs were suddenly everywhere, eating everything. And a lot of people started smelling a big problem. “I’ve never seen such a serious pest enter the U.S. agricultural system,” said Tracy Lesky, research entomologist with the West Virginia-based Appalachian Fruit Research Station, “if only because they attack so many crops.” Stinkbugs are tough, reproduce quickly, can fly long distances, and are very good at hitchhiking inside clothes and vehicles. They can live in wet and dry climates, both cold and warm, and will eat almost anything. And they have made their way westward and can now be found in most states.

Including Oregon, one of the nation’s most important food-growing regions. And it’s here that a solution for stink bugs is about to be field-tested, in the form of something as small as the comma in this sentence. And it’s got a really cool name, the “Samurai Wasp”! Since 2005, scientists have been testing this wasp’s ability to wipe out stinkbugs before they start. The wasp locates stink bug egg colonies and injects its own eggs inside. There, the wasp larvae eat their way through the stink bug eggs and destroy them before they can hatch. The results of the tests have been so positive that now the Oregon Department of Agriculture has decided to broadly release Samurai Wasps into the environment in hopes of protecting the state’s harvest of hazelnuts, cane berries, blueberries, apples and pears.

Are we headed for the ultimate bug battle – “Return of the Stink Bugs”, “Chinese Beetles and Japanese Wasps”, “Stinkers vs. Stingers”? Only time and biology will tell.

But in the meantime, one thing is certain. We’re in for one smelly summer.