Brown porch beetle – Identification

Q: On your website you mention a brown beetle that “swarms around porch lights at night”. I have so many I can barely open my back door. I would like to know what they are and how to get rid of them.

A: The beetle is probably the Southern masked chafer. These brown beetles are about half an inch long. Like Japanese beetles, they emerge from the white, C-shaped grubs you see when you dig the soil each spring. Since they are attracted to light, place a glue board near the light and discard it when it gets full of beetles. Yellow lightbulbs are reputed to repel insects but in truth they are only less attractive to night insects than white lightbulbs.