When is Japanese Beetle Season?

Japanese beetle season starts long before the annoying beetles are chewing up leaves right and left. Their season corresponds to their lifecycle. Understanding their life cycle will help you be better prepared for these creatures. More importantly, it will help you know how to get rid of Japanese beetles.

Understanding the Japanese Beetle Lifecycle

Japanese beetles are most well-known for their adult stage. In this stage, they are shiny and grab the visual attention. Additionally, they are clumsy flyers and are likely to bump into people as they go about their business. They feed on roses, linden trees, hollyhocks, crabapple trees and various other flowering plants. They mate and the female flies down to the ground to lay her small, white, oval eggs.

The eggs hatch in a few weeks into white, c-shaped grubs with a brown head. These grubs feed on foots of grasses and other plants. In some cases, their presence is sufficient to cause visible damage from their feeding habits. In the fall as things cool off, they overwinter deep in the soil.

In the spring, the larvae return closer to the surface and pupate. They will be in this stage for couple of weeks emerging in the late spring early summer.

When Are Japanese Beetles Most Active?

Japanese beetles are active year round in one form or another, but they are most active in the mid summer during their feeding and mating frenzy.

Identifying Japanese Beetles and the Damage They Cause

How to Spot Japanese Beetles

Japanese beetle adults are a shiny green with brown shiny wings. They will be seen flying through the air, resting on the ground while laying eggs, or sitting on plant foliage stuffing their bellies.

Common Plant Damage from Japanese Beetles

The adult Japanese beetle chews the softest and juiciest parts of the foliage leaving just the skeleton of the leaf behind. The decimated leaves eventually have an appearance of lace rather than a green leaf.

Get Rid of Japanese Beetles Quickly and Effectively

The easiest way to get rid of Japanese beetles is to plant flowers that repel Japanese beetles​. Keep in mind that just because a plant deters Japanese Beetles, it does not mean they will not tolerate its annoyance to get at something especially attractive to them. If you want to maximize plants that Japanese Beetles are likely to avoid, plant:

• Marigolds
• Tansy
• Chrysanthemums
• Geraniums
• Rue
• Pines
• Junipers
• Oaks
• Hydrangeas

Japanese beetle control for plants that attract them has four proven elements:

1. Netting or exclusion – setting up physical barriers or nets that they beetles can’t penetrate is especially important for consumables.
2. Systemic treatments – certain plants can be treated in the spring with a product that will reside in the plants system making their foliage less tasty and even lethal to Japanese beetles.
3. Granular treatments – Japanese beetles tend to lay their eggs under or in close proximity to the plant’s canopy. Applying a granular to kill their larvae reduces the population for the following season.
4. Foliar treatments – Once Japanese beetles have swarmed a given plant, they can be sprayed directly if the plant is not bearing food that humans eat.

If you are wondering about the Japanese beetle traps, there are pheromone bags that attract Japanese Beetles. These bags will not only draw the beetles out of your plants for a time, but will draw them in from properties around you. While many people catch bags full of them, this has not proven an effective control measure and may draw in as many as it reduces.

If you are wondering how to get rid of Japanese beetles in the house, this is a more simple matter. They cannot survive inside for long. Keep doors shut and windows closed or screened so they don’t fly in. If one hitches a ride into your home on your hair or clothes, simply grab it and toss it outside or vacuum it up.

Protect Your Home and Garden – Give Rove Pest Control a Call!

Rove Pest Control has your answer to pest control for Japanese beetles. From systemic treatments that make plants less suitable to them to treatments aimed at minimizing the grubs; Rove has the plan for you. Controlling Japanese beetles​ is a process, so start today and get a plan in place before they torture you and your plants.