I really hate these brown fat crunchy guys.  At my place, they seem to come out in droves, flying around like little superheroes.  But they’re dumb.  They run into everything and always seem to land on their back, buzzing furiously and struggling with all their might to flip their fat body back over.  By the time they succeed they’re so out of sorts they take off any which direction; sometimes landing in an ear.  During the evenings of june bug season, you’ll often find me with my hands covering my ears.  I have a huge fear of my husband having to dig around my ear or a visit to the ER to have a june bug removed. 

So what exactly are these bugs?  Adult grubs are a good way to think about them.  June bugs lay their eggs in the soil during the fall and the eggs hatch in just a few weeks.  This larvae eventually turn into grubs.  The grubs become active the following spring which means they are now eating your grass roots.  Once they pupate they emerge from the soil as june bugs.   

June bugs eat foliage on trees and bushes.  Some folks have reported pretty severe damage to their young trees from june bugs.   I’ve not had that problem so to me they are more of a nuisance pest than anything,

There are several ways to control june bugs.  If you like chemical-free methods, then you can increase your toad and songbird population to benefit from decreasing adult june bugs.  Also, I found a pretty interesting forum post about June Bug Death Jars and would try this method myself if I wasn’t so sure that my dogs would eat the traps.

If you prefer to control june bugs using a chemical application, you need to do so mid-August to early September.  This will be a soil application.  You may use Sevin, applied directly to the soil – don’t water it in.  As with all chemical controls, read the instructions and take the precautions into consideration. 

Happy june bug killing.  ♥