Beneficial grubs are often present in compost -- I always find little white ones in mine and let them be. I don't know what yours are, but if they are pests along with the fire ants, you'd better add lots of green and brown stuff to the heap you already have, mix it up (from a distance with those fire ants) and let it heat up again. The fire ants will leave under those conditions, and I'd think the grubs would leave as well. Don't sprinkle fire ant killer around your compost heap in hopes of killing them. It probably would, but they take the poison back to the nest, and if it's in compost, you're going to have poison in the compost after they die. Better to drive them out somehow, and then what you do if they take up residence in a place away from your garden is your business! (I put out poisoned bait for them on the lawn myself, since there's no other certain way to kill them without killing beneficial insects, too.) I wouldn't use the orange oil on the compost heap either. Compost is usually home to large numbers of earthworms, and you'd kill them, too. What I've done is spray a mixture of orange oil and water in a "C" shape around any area that I want to drive them out of. Actually you can make any shape with an opening in it. I spray only enough to moisten the surface, not enough to penetrate below the surface -- I figure the earthworms are able to sense small amounts of it and avoid its presence on the soil surface. I leave the opening pointed in the direction I want them to go. The fire ants will avoid the strip with the orange oil and exit through the orange oil-free area and I can get 'em later. It's worked for me when boiling water or flooding them with hose-water doesn't budge them.

Patrick/Prof. Dirt ~ Thx again. You're right about the "barehanded" thing. That was actually a mistake on my behalf. I do wear gloves. However I never used to be afraid to lift a gloved handful up to my nose for fear of seeing an ugly-white- monster-grub looking back at me. We live on a 2 acre woodlot so most of our compost comprises of shredded dry leaves & woodchips( run twice through chipper/shredder). I use the "hot pile" method to compost. I find I only have to use a small amount of nitrogen based ingredients (approx. 3(C):1(N) ratio). I hand dice/slice/chop all green, nitrogen rich ingredients well before. I mix everything(shredded leaves+veg.scraps) together prior to putting into the bin. Voila. Full bin heats up and ready to use in a 3-4 weeks. That's beneficial because our gardening season is short. I could eat my mix before I actually plop it into the bin. That is if you're fond of chewing dead leaves & wilted greens. LOL I don't use egg shells or that sort of thing in the bin. Vegetable based only(carrot tops/beet leaves/etc.) I contain everything in closed bins with mesh wire flooring that have never allowed rodents etc. to enter. Prior to adding the "larvae" I never had any surprises or meat protein to worry about when digging in ... But thanks again for calming my larvae/grub/maggot concerns/phobia once again. PS. I won't be adding anything like that to the "mix" again. Yuk!!

Monte, from the FAQ: "Green fruit beetles are, for the most part, good guys. They prefer to feed on decomposing organic material as grubs and overripe or rotting fruit as adults. If you have them in the compost pile they are working hard to break it down for you along with the redworms and other members of your "microherd". "You can identify them from other more destructive types of grubs fairly easily. They are an off white color changing to a dark grey at the tail end with a reddish brown head. They are considerably larger than most grubs, up to 2" in some cases. Say the size of a small shrimp. If you expose them they will crawl on their backs, legs in the air, to try and rebury themselves. This "upside down" mode of locomotion is specific to this species." That's pretty specific. So - is that what you have, you think? It says nothing about eating roots. The first time these grubs found their way into my compost pile, from horse manure I think, they chewed through it, making the best finished compost - as fine-textured as vermicompost.

Yes, brown head, a little off-white near the head & blue-green on the bottom half. I saw some photos of white grubs, but they seem to have a more consistently white body. Sorry about the picture quality, I used my camera phone. John