Japanese Beetle's Plague Hocking Hills

Were the Japanese Beetles one of the Seven Plagues?

Well maybe not but they are without a doubt really pesky,
little buggers. They would even be somewhat pretty if they
did not eat there weight in flowers, plants and leaves.
The Japanese Beetle is just another bug that has been introduced
into the United States where they have no natural enemies to
keep their numbers in check as they do in Japan. They were
thought to be brought into the United States in 1912 in a shipment
of Iris bulbs before inspections were mandatory and found in
a nursery in New Jersey in 1916. They have came a
"long way baby", since then and have covered the entire Eastern
section of the United States and as far west as Wisconsin and
southward to Alabama.
They love my roses, hollyhocks and are thick on my Rose of
Sharon shrubs. I want to spray them and kill them all but do not
want to endanger the diminishing honey bees, so we are left
hanging traps or just knocking them off squashing the little buggers.
Ducks will eat them but not many people have ducks around
their homes or farms these days.
They eat out big holes in the buds and blossoms of the Roses and
Rose of Sharon's and the leaves on the Holly Hock's
look like lace where they have eaten around the veins in the leaves.




There are very few flowers and plants that they do not eat and
the Ohio State University Extension claims there are 300 and that
the Japanese Beetle is one of Ohio's most abundant and important
landscape pest.

"Fly Away,Fly Away Home!" Wrong bug wish they would.