The 1 Way To Protect Your Yard From Billions Of Cicadas

ILLINOIS — Billions of cicadas will emerge from underground this spring and there’s nothing Illinois residents can do to stop them.

There is, however, one thing they can do to protect their yards, NBC 5 Chicago reported.

Wrapping the bases of trees and bushes in foil or barrier tape prevents the bugs from feeding or laying eggs in them, Orkin technical services manager Frank Meek told the outlet, noting cicadas can also be gently removed from yards and gardens by hand.

Lake Forest is advising residents who plant young trees this spring to protect them with netting, according to NBC 5.

READ MORE: Billions Of Cicadas Could Squirt Pee At You When Insects Emerge In IL

Cicadas can’t breed indoors so homes can’t be infested with them, Meek told the outlet. The bugs are generally harmless and pesticides are ineffective at keeping them away, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Nevertheless, trees may be surrounded by piles of the cicadas’ shells, Allen Lawrence, associate entomology curator of the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, told NBC 5.

"There's no stopping them," he told the outlet. "They're here. It's temporary, and there's really no escaping them."

This year the insects will be particularly prominent when two varieties — the 17-year cicadas in Brood XIII or the Northern Illinois Brood and the 13-year cicadas in Brood XIX or the Great Southern Brood — emerge in a rare, synchronized event that hasn’t happened since 1803.

A tiny bit of southeast Iowa will also see both broods.

Brood XIII cicadas appear in Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio, and a bit of Michigan as well. Brood XIX cicadas will be found in a much larger area that touches 15 states: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Missouri, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia.

Cicadas spend most of their lives underground as immature nymphs then emerge to multiply before dying in four to six weeks. Known for their signature mating call, they are about an inch long and have a 3-inch wingspan.

The insects should start tunneling toward the surface when soil temperatures reach about 64 degrees. In Illinois, that should be sometime around late May, according to University of Illinois officials.

The Northern Illinois Brood has a reputation for being the largest emergence of cicadas anywhere. According to research by entomologists Monte Lloyd and Henry Dybas at the Field Museum in Chicago, a 1956 brood of Northern Illinois cicadas produced 1.5 million cicadas per acre.