05/29/2026
June is the loudest insect month of the year. Here's what's active right now and what's coming in the next few weeks.
Already here and peaking: bumble bees on every flower, hoverflies mimicking bees while eating aphids, lady beetles patrolling the garden, tiger swallowtails working the butterfly bush. Paper wasp nests are growing under every eave.
🌿 Emerging this month:
- Fireflies — first flashes at dusk, building through June into peak season
- June beetles — at the porch light after three years underground
- Japanese beetles — metallic green on the roses by mid-June. Hand-pick before 9 AM.
- Luna moths — pale green, no mouth, roughly a week to live. Look for them on screen doors after dark.
- Annual cicadas — the continuous daytime buzz starts mid-to-late June and runs through August
- Monarch generation two — laying eggs on milkweed right now
June sounds different than May. The bird chorus tapers. The insect chorus takes over 🐾
