Bumble Flower Beetle

This beautiful beetle was observed by our crew several times in fiber hemp during the end of the 2017 growing season. In each case, the beetle was part of an assemblage of insects and associated with damage to the plant stem, usually from the stem buckling under the weight of birds using the plant for a perch.  The beetle responds to ‘crisis hormones’ released by the damaged plant and will compound damage already present on the stems.