The dozens of small, multicolored beetles chowing down on your rose bushes are world travelers, but don't let that stop you from hosing them down with pesticide.

Those bugs are Japanese beetles that somehow found their way from Asia, England and the East Coast to a half-mile sector in west Orem surrounding Orem Community Hospital. The infestation right now is confined to that area, and agricultural officials want to keep it that way.

"We don't want to get started on that here," said Larry Lewis, spokesman for the Utah Department of Agriculture and Food.

Meredith Seaver, a master gardener and diagnostician for the Utah State University extension office in Utah County, discovered the bugs in her yard, said Adrian Hinton, the USU extension horticulture agent in Utah County. She brought the bugs into him, and he confirmed it and informed the state office. They are all on full alert now, trapping as many beetles as possible and trying to inform people about the problem.

"These are no-no bugs that should not be in our area," he said, adding the damage done to other parts of the country and world by the bugs is severe. "But we have got to nip it in the bud as quickly as we can."

The bugs eat rosebushes, grass, trees, shrubs, vegetables and the leaves of various trees; Hinton said they primarily affect turf and ornamental plants instead of food crops. But, Lewis warned, that still presents a potential economic problem for the nursery industry in Utah; if the problem isn't resolved, other states might quarantine certain crops, resulting in lost inventory or expensive treatments.

Lewis said he's not sure how the bugs got to Orem, but more than 100 traps have been set up in the area around the hospital -- what Hinton called the "epicenter of this earthquake of Japanese beetles" -- and in areas with a number of fruit trees. The green and yellow traps, most hanging from trees or fences, have a beetle pheromone to entice the beetles to go in, where they fall into a plastic container and can't get out. This should also keep them from mating, which will not only slow or stop the infestation from continuing but also will reduce the amount of damage to plants, since the grubs get into the ground and eat tree and shrub roots and grass. The bugs go through about three generations a season, Hinton said.

"It's the larva that do a lot of the damage as well as the adults," he said.

The beetles are not a threat to humans; they don't bite or sting or spread diseases. Nor is the infestation big enough to panic about just yet; Lewis said his department has collected about 500 insects in two to three weeks, not many compared to states in the Northeast, "they could collect that in a matter of hours."

Steve Weber, a division manager with Orem's Public Works Department, said the city is aware of the infestation and is working with the state. The state is planning a meeting with residents and landowners in the area, he said, of which the city is one. Also, should the bugs spread, they could do significant damage to parks and other city property, so they are paying extra attention and trying to get questions answered and solutions implemented.

"It'll save us all a lot of headaches," he said.

Heidi Toth can be reached at 344-2543 or htoth@heraldextra.com.

What to look for:

Large holes, damage to leaves.

Dead leaves, flowers, grass.

Metallic green insects with brown wings feeding in the early morning and late afternoon hours.

Dried out grass, skunk and raccoon damage in yard from trying to get to the grubs.

Bugs that are easily shaken off when the plant is shaken or approached.

What to do:

Treat property with a pesticide.

Call the USU extension office at (801) 851-8463 for confirmation.

This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page A1.