It’s summertime and the livin’ is ... fluttery.

Invasive spotted lanternflies are marching around like they own the place: swarming over tree trunks, waddling around windowsills and careening haphazardly through the air.

Then there are people trying to stomp on them, an awkward dance that usually ends in disappointment as the bug flits away.

But after years of whacking, smacking and squashing, more people are just letting the bugs be. With millions of lanternflies milling around, is there any point in trying to kill just one?

It’s been more than a decade since the creatures first hitched a ride from China to Berks County, Pennsylvania. Since then, the insects have fanned out to 20 other states, and like ambitious sales reps, are always looking to expand their territory.

The insect invaders swarm in large numbers around their favorite plants, excrete a shimmering mist of “honeydew” — a technical term for bug pee — and, if you’re not grossed out enough already, are prepping for a late-summer mating frenzy.

The good news is that spotted lanternflies don’t bite, sting or carry diseases. For the most part, they mind their own business, which is laying lots of eggs and sinking their mouth parts into plants to suck sap.

The little tipplers don’t significantly damage most plants, but they can wreak serious harm to one of their favorite foods: grapevines. Winery owners fear the bugs will affect the flavor of grapes or even decimate vineyards.

Since the bugs first arrived, people have conceived elaborate methods to kill them, including sucking them up with a vacuum. Spotted lanternfly serial killers share their secrets in a social media group called Lanternfly Kill Count. A New Jersey high school student invented a lanternfly-zapping artificial tree.

But is there a point to all this buggy bloodshed?

The answer, according to entomologists, is yes. We should continue to try to keep the population in check and slow the bugs’ spread. But we should use techniques that kill the most spotted lanternflies without harming other species.

In other words, there is little point in chasing down a single insect. You can quit stomping.

“People could squish and squish and stomp and stomp and it wouldn’t do anything,” said University of Maryland entomology professor Paula Shrewsbury.

The best way to limit the population is to not let the bugs hatch in the first place, said Shrewsbury. Spend the colder months hunting down their egg masses and scraping them into the trash.

Jessica Boyles, the Maryland Department of Agriculture’s spotted lanternfly program coordinator, said her team works with vineyard owners to remove the eggs in winter and apply pesticides during the growing season.

Boyles recommended that residents with lots of spotted lanternflies install an easy-to-make circle trap.

Avoid glue or tape traps, Boyles said, since those could also ensnare other creatures, including those that help control the spotted lanternfly population. Birds, praying mantises, assassin bugs, bats and even pet dogs have been seen eating the invasive insects.

Spotted lanternflies are especially drawn to the tree of heaven, or ailanthus, another invasive species from China. Like characters in an action film sequel, the bugs seek out their old targets in their new home.

Boyles cautioned against cutting down the trees of heaven in your yard because they are difficult to eradicate and, if not removed properly, send up new shoots from the roots. She suggested installing a circle trap on trees of heaven and being vigilant about egg masses in fall and winter.

You could also opt to have trees professionally removed, which is what Josh Sisk chose to do last year.

Sisk, a freelance photographer, had grown sick of the bugs spraying honeydew over the vegetable garden of his Old Goucher home. The sugary fluid attracts a fungus, sooty mold, which, as its name suggests, leaves a black stain. Yellow jackets, hornets and bees are also drawn to the sticky excretion.

“I feel kind of bad cutting down trees, but they were just so gross,” said Sisk, who hired an expert to chop down the trees and kill the stumps with a herbicide.

Teresa Duggan of Hampden describes herself a “frequent lanternfly murderess” who slips her hands into bread bags to squish fistfuls of lanternflies in the grape vine that shades her back patio. “And I generally love bugs,” she said.

An artist, Duggan said she is contemplating creating a zine called “Why and How to Murder Lanternflies.” She remains a believer in trying to squish any lanternfly around. “If you kill one female, you stop it from laying a bunch of eggs,” she said.

Erin Sinnott has been patrolling the grounds of her Towson home with a spray bottle full of neem oil, an environmentally friendly extract from the seeds of a tropical tree.

Spotted lanternflies are “obsessed” with her yard’s hops vines and weeping birch tree, Sinnott said. “Every little vine is crawling with them,” she said.

While her 9-year-old daughter thinks the bugs are cute, Sinnott, the owner of a flooring company, finds them horrifying. One recently flew down her shirt during an outdoor business lunch, prompting Sinnott to jump up and knock over her chair.

“They’re just the dumbest insects,“ she said.

Some Maryland residents say they were once ambitious lanternfly stompers, but have given up as the bugs’ population has swelled.

Culinary historian Kara Mae Harris has to wash her car frequently to remove the sticky film of honeydew. The bugs cavort among the rose bushes of her Remington home and cluster in the trees of nearby Wyman Park Dell.

Although Harris volunteers to help remove invasive plants from parks, she has stopped stomping lanternflies, describing it as “kind of pointless.”

Plus she’s decided the bumbling bugs are sort of cute. “I hope no one will be mad at me for saying that,” she said.

The good news is that the spotted lanternfly population seems to level out over time. In Berks County, the bugs’ ground zero, the local newspaper reported that the population sharply declined several years after they arrived.

The same thing has happened here with another invasive insect, the brown marmorated stink bug, said Shrewsbury, the University of Maryland entomologist. After a stink bug baby boom a decade or so ago, the population leveled off.

The population of invasive insects generally follows a boom-and-bust cycle, as they munch through their favorite food sources and catch the eyes of predators, Shrewsbury said.

All the more reason not to stomp.

Plus, as Michele Wallen discovered last year, attempting to tromp on lanternflies can be dangerous.

Wallen, the pastor of Ashland Presbyterian Church in Hunt Valley, was at a retreat center in Virginia last summer when they saw a lanternfly fluttering on the concrete stairs. They attempted to step on the bug, but it flitted away at the last minute, causing them to lose their balance and fracture a bone in their foot.

The worst part? The bug flew off unscathed.

“He got away, and I got an injury,” said Wallen, who spent weeks in a boot and a brace.

But she got her revenge this year.

“I did actually step on a lanternfly with my right foot,” she said. “And I killed it.”