White grubs first insects of what experts say will be busy bug season

Many Maritime homeowners who waited to see grass after months of ice and snow are now finding their lawns being dug up by crows and bug experts say it's just the beginning.

Already, white grubs are making an appearance in Dorothy Haley's lawn.

"We sprayed it last year and obviously it didn't work, because this year, our lawn is gone," she said.

Zoologist Andrew Hebda with the Museum of Natural History in Halifax says the grubs will be the first of many insects.

'It's the first bugs that are available," he said. "The first big chunks of food close to the surface."

Those grubs appeal especially to crows and skunks. Crows have been digging up Haley's lawn ever since the snow melted. Haley says the birds can have them.

"They're white grubby little things," she said. "With these little black heads and they just squirm around and they're big and they're fat and they're ugly. I wouldn't want to touch them at all."

Hebda warns this past winter has been bad for Maritimers, but great for bugs.

"We'd had very little ground frost, it was quite open until the third week of January," he said. "Then we got very heavy snowfall. so the ground's been quite nice for all sorts of insects that live in the ground."

Unfortunately, there is no quick fix to get rid of the grubs. Emily Tregunno from Halifax Seed says the ground still has to warm up.

"Right now at this time, there isn't," she said. "The only product that's on the market is a beneficial nematode. So it's a grub killer nematode. You can only start to apply that and use it when the soil temperature warms up to 15 degrees celsius."

Tregunno estimates the soil temperature right now is about 5 C.

If those little white grubs are left alone, they'll eventually turn into June bugs, crawl out of the ground and fly away.

That won't be for at least another month.