Horrible Horrible Beetles

These are the scourge of my roses each spring since moving up here .[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.] I don't know what sort of beetle they are or where they come from . I have never been troubled with them in my other gardens , but here they just APPEAR .
Seemingly overnight too and in plague proportions for good measure . They do immeasurable damage to my spring roses each year.
Last year they were a bit later in arriving because [I'm assuming] we had a wet spring but they are at their worst October through to November and then almost disappear as promptly as they arrived.
They chomp their horrible way through buds , flowers and new foliage growth and when eating the flowers don't just confine their munching to the petals but often eat all the stamens out too.[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
They also like to have a chew on my apricot and plum tree leaves and last year they also attacked the soft new growth and forming buds on some of my callistemon as well.
Mind you, I wasn't an orphan . Talking with some of the other mum's up at the school and having a chat in at the local garden center showed that other people were being bugged too . Nobody had any real answers about what to do to combat them though , most just waited them out .

Now that it's pruning time again , I have my sister coming down from Perth to give us a hand . Last week we were talking about the beetle problem and she was wondering if anyone has a more **organic** way to nuke 'em .
In 2004 I couldn't spray them because I was pregnant and in 2005 I couldn't because I was breastfeeding . Come 2006 I let rip but they were bloody hard to kill.
Carbaryl or malathion were about the only things that would dead them and needed to be re-sprayed every week to ten days . After a few weeks of this , I was feeling more deaded than the beetles .
Nothing eats them either . I have lots of birds in the garden and have nary an aphid thanks to the resident blue wrens and the chooks will eat just about every bug in sight but they won't touch these .

So if anyone has any suggestions ....

cheers. Rosalie

Rosalie, welcome firstly from me before we start. I am on the other side of OZ. I have no real answer to the bug. Some thoughts are which may help with it's ID.
1. Are you in suburbia or farmish land.
2. Any access to an agronamist/entamolagist
3. University studying science/agriculture/ horticulture
4. a Botanical Garden or like.
I would try these avenues first and if no luck "we" will think further on the subject, have a great day, David.

Malathion's worse than beetles. Especially when there are kids around; they don't read warning labels or obey parental instructions on not drinking various things.
My worst rose pest is parrots...

My worst rose pest IS the kids LOL

I have a beetle that look similar to this every year and it only seems to gather on the very strongly perfumed roses (and the buddleja ) and the light coloured ones. I was thinking of making some kind of sweet trap for them this year. Something like a beer trap for slugs...

I get those small beetles here also, mostly on white blooms. I call them borer beetles as can't seem to find the right name.

There is a spray you can use that will kill them called Carberall (Spelling?)
Unfortunatly will kill just about everything, even the Swallows and any bird that picks up some in their beaks. The Swallows picked up the mud to build their nest found under the rose bushes. There were dead swallows all around the roses, so distressed was I that have never sprayed since.
Probably the Swallows saved my life had I have kept spraying.

Most bugs, scale and fungas etc seem to come and go with the seasons so just enjoy the blooms and close your eyes to the problems.
We are sent catalogues by the nurseries featuring PBR ( Patented) cold climate roses that will probably struggle up the east coast of Australia.
Their culture notes will recomend spraying, thought gardening was a healthy pass time. Best advice is to grow roses suitable for your climate.

your answers are in this thread

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Thanks for that Cheryl ; interesting reading in Scribbly Gum.
They had tentively been i.d as a type of cock schaffer previously , not that I am that fussed about a name .
You only have to refer to the !*&%$^%# beetles in Collie , and most people know what you are talking about straight away !

Ozeboy I know the stuff that you mean - carbaryl . It's easier just not to spray and wait till the beetles move on but still heartbreaking watching the damage that they cause .
The year that I tried spraying them , you'd only reduce the numbers for about a week and then the masses would be back.
And as a matter of fact , I have seldom if ever sprayed my roses since , not even for B.S
I'm guessing that they must come in on the wind as I only find beetles not grubs munching my roses . Figure that if I had that many beetle larvae living underground and chomping on the rose roots , I wouldn't have a rose bush left alive .

Simon I have noticed that the lighter coloured flowers are targeted more too . The colours least affected seem to be the orange/apricot/bright reds .
The sticky sweet trap ? hmmmm will have to put the thinking cap on and see what I can come up with .
It would be fantastic if something like that could reduce the numbers .
As to the kids ; I've told 'em that I'll chop their fingers off !
At the shoulders .

cheers. OzRose

Hope it helped a bit Oz, us on the gardening part over there call em dribbly bums and we are the tree huggers

We have been beseiged by little beetles this week. They are a pretty iridescent blue/green about 1 centimetre long. We first saw a swarm of them on Mme. Hardy where they had completely skelatinised the leaves on one big branch.
Bill hit them with his old standby, pyrethrum. They dropped dead immediately.
But there was more of them. He has since sprayed a number of collections on various roses, mostly white ones. But they also tried to eat the ornamentall apple tree and the persimmon tree.
We hope they have been dealth with now but it took a few days of going around the garden with the spray to catch all the stragglers.
We have never had this problem before.