Do Japanese Beetles Migrate?

Japanese beetles don’t migrate, and they don’t hibernate either. They don’t move locations from season to season like birds do.

Some people think that Japanese beetles migrate because they seem to disappear for most of the year. The beetles are seemingly everywhere during Japanese beetle season in the summer, and then can’t be found during the other three seasons.

What happens is that the adult beetles die during the late summer and that is why you don’t see them anymore after that. The adult phase of the Japanese beetle is very short, only 2 to 3 months, but the larval stage is much longer.

Larva, or grubs, are burrowed under the soil during the non-summer months. They are growing and feeding there waiting for the warm weather to return again so that they can rise above ground as adults.

In order to truly migrate, the beetles would need to be able to cover long distances in flight. Japanese beetles can fly but not very well, and definitely not for very long distances.