superclown2 - 12:31 pm on Oct 4, 2011 (gmt 0)

I'm in the UK and I had a similar problem. I now have a .htaccess file several thousand lines long that I have built up over the last decade, which blocks IP addresses that bots have come from worldwide as well as /8 blocks on APNIC. Most of the blocks are outside the UK but there are certain universities and others in Britain that I've blocked for persistent problems. It doesn't seem to slow down performance one iota. I'll let you have a copy if you wish.

I've used honeypots in the past but every now and again a real search engine has strayed into it with all sorts of complicated results.