Sounds like mealybug. Adult male mealybugs can fly. Insecticidal soap should do the trick. I'd spray every few days until you're sure they're gone.

Another method you can use...dip a Q-tip into isoprophyl alcohol and dab it onto the mealy bug mass. It kills them instantly.

Pest management is complex, if you want to learn, a good place to start is here:

Integrated Pest Management
This lecture is presented in two parts. Each part is 90-minutes in length. Recorded in Sacramento County in California's Sacramento Valley, this lecture is by Mary Louise Flint, Ph.D., Director, IPM Education and Publications, UC Statewide IPM Project and Extension Entomologist & Cooperative Extension Specialist.

Education:
B.S. Plant Science, University of California, Davis
Ph.D. Entomology, University of California, Berkeley

Appointment:
100% Cooperative Extension

Research Interests:
Integrated pest management of landscape, agricultural and garden pests; biological control of arthropod pests; alternatives to pesticides; adoption of alternative practices by practitioners; innovative delivery of pest management information.

Topics discussed in the Integrated Pest Management Lecture:

* IPM references and resources
* Preventing pest problems
* Natural common enemies
* Making less toxic pesticide choices
* Controlling aphids, scales, caterpillars, coddling moths, tree borers, snails and slugs, and lawn insects.

You can watch the programs now online:

Just make sure you have Real Player installed or download it free.

Integrated Pest Management Part1 90 minutes

Integrated Pest Management Part 2 90 minutes

You'll want to bookmark the following link to Professor Flint's Lab Research on:
Controlling Pests in Gardens and Landscapes: Vegetables and Melons

I promise you'll learn one or two things to put in your gardening bag of pest management arsenals.

;)

If small white critters which look like tiny white moths and hold their wings horizontal -- most likely whiteflies.

If small fuzzy white critters which either move very slowly or not at all, most likely mealies. (By the way, male mealies are so small that few people ever see or recognize them.)

If small white fuzzies that can fly and/or hop and/or simply move out of your way, perhaps a fuzzy planthopper whose name I don't now recall. (Perhaps someone can help, please!)

I remember! Perhaps the woolly planthopper -- Metcalfa pruinosa.

jean001,

Did you look at the link I provided? There is a pest identification area...

{{gwi:75732}}
Woolly apple aphid

{{gwi:75733}}
Cottony cushion scale

{{gwi:75735}}
Mealybug

{{gwi:75736}}
Adelgid adult

kelleyville,

Just which plant are these characters on? Is it in a pot or the ground?

Also where do you live?

-- -- --
And violet, I didn't look at the site because I previously have been there. Also, I know the particular pests in the pictures you posted because I teach the local Master Gardeners their Entomology classes. Unfortunately, the pests in your post don't fit kelleyville's description.

Here are some facts about the critters in the photos posted above:

1. Woolly apple aphids: Exclusive to apple trees. Live both on roots and on parts aboveground; don't fly when disturbed.

2. Cottony cushion scales: the adults (the "white stage") don't fly when disturbed.

3. Mealybugs: Don't fly when disturbed.

4. Adelgids: Only on conifers. Adults do fly seasonally but not enmasse.