What bug is destroying my white flowers?

If you live in California, no doubt you have seen these pesky critters.

They are called Rose Chafers or Hoplia beetles. Often erroneously called Japanese Beetles.

The unintelligent, clumsy pests show up every April for about 3 weeks, devour all white and light colored flowers, then disappear until next year. Talk about greedy, unwelcome guests!

Unfortunately, there aren’t not any completely effective ways of controlling them. The best way to do anything is to distract them. They are really dumb. They fly toward light colors then land hoping to feast. Distract them from your flowers by putting out a white bucket with a few inches of water and a drop of soap near your flowers. They will fly in to the bucket, fall in the water and drown. As I said, they are really dumb!

You can also hand pick them frequently to prevent them from mating and reproducing. I take great pleasure in feeding them to my chickens!

Since the immature stages of these beetles is a grub, you can put out grub control by March to kill any grubs in the ground before they mature into beetles. This is only effective if you can cover a large area with the grub killer.

If you’d like to read more about these insects, I recommend this page Hoplia Beetle Management from UCIPM.