BURLINGTON - The sound coming from the honeysuckle at the far end of Jim Frautschy's yard is the stuff of nightmares. The quiet, eerie drone of thousands of Japanese beetles dining on leaves.

Creeping. Crawling. Chewing. Mating.

They hover. Everywhere you look, there they are. The beetles are turning the once robust leaves of Frautschy's plants into fine lace as they march through his garden.

The shiny copper insects started invading Frautschy's trees, shrubs and plants last year. They like Frautschy's roses, too, several of which he has planted around his Shiloh Court home.

Frautschy first noticed the voracious pests last year as they dined on his roses and the leaves on some of the trees he planted around his home. The beetles dine on more than 300 different species.

It's a frustration that many gardeners, like Frautschy, are experiencing this year. Hordes of the beetles have sent local gardeners scurrying for answers from experts on how to get rid of the pests.

There seem to be more beetles this year, said Frautschy, who empties the green trap at the back of his property almost every day, once its filled and teeming with the pests. He also empties the trap nearby at his daughter's house.

Frautschy, 81, and his wife, Deonne, moved to their new home in Burlington's Shiloh Hills subdivision three years ago. Frautschy has devoted much of his time in retirement to plants. Gardening is in his blood. He's devoted three-quarters of an acre to gardens.

"It's devastating. It really is. It makes you sick to do all this work to get everything looking nice, then the dang bugs come in," Frautschy said.

The Japanese beetle is considered one of the worst turf grass pests in the United States, according to University of Wisconsin Extension entomologists.

First discovered in the U.S. in southern New Jersey in 1916, the beetles now occur in every state east of the Mississippi River except Florida. They're moving. Infestations have occurred in Oregon and California and have started appearing in Iowa.

Phil Pellitteri knows how frustrating Japanese beetles can be. Pellitteri, a University of Wisconsin Extension entomologist, has watched as the problem has steadily grown in the past two decades.

They've been around parts of Wisconsin for years and at times have gone unnoticed, Pellitteri said. It's only when people see the damage a real infestation can cause that they start taking notice.

It's all gardeners seem to want to talk about these days.

Pellitteri said he fielded more questions about Japanese beetles than anything else when he visited a farm technology fair this week in Greenleaf.

His voice mail was filled with messages from people frustrated with the pests when he returned to his office in Madison Wednesday.

"There is no insect that I find that makes gardening more miserable," said Pellitteri, who has run the university's entomology lab for the past 30 years.

The number of beetles might have been down in recent years in Wisconsin because of drought, Pellitteri said. Females need moist soil to lay the eggs that turn into the larvae that are the bane of golf courses everywhere. The larvae then turn into the beetles, which frustrate gardeners like Frautschy.

Pellitteri isn't surprised that this has been a big issue this year following the rains that soaked southeastern Wisconsin last summer. There wasn't a lot of frost in the ground this year either, which might have killed the grubs, which spend the winter in the ground.

The beetles started showing up on Frautschy's plants and trees earlier this month. They've descended on his alpine currants, his catoni astors and his birch trees, among other things.

He sprays to kill them and treats his lawn for the grubs, but it sometimes seems like an uphill battle.

"They're supposed to last four weeks. I don't think they get the notice to leave," Frautschy said.

Most of the calls that the staff at the Burlington Garden Center get right now are from people like Frautschy looking for something to take care of Japanese beetles, said store manager Tracy Hankwitz.

Hankwitz recommends a number of different products, usually something containing Carbaryl, an insecticide.

For people who prefer more organic methods, Hankwitz recommends products containing Rotenone, or an insecticidal soap, which won't kill the beetles but will deter them.

The other type of defense gardeners can give their plants is using a systemic product that is absorbed into the plant's tissues.

While the beetles prefer roses and members of the rose family, they will eat a variety of things.

"We've had a lot of people calling in finding them on their vegetables. They will eat a leaf in no time and kind of decimate a plant," Hankwitz said. "Some plants will recover. If they're hit hard enough, they won't."