Before you do any 'dunking', make sure white stuff is bugs...I have thought similar, and the white stuff turned out to be dust from perlite or pumice...

Not quie sure if I would be happy with infected plants - I never bought any via mail from store, but received some as trade/gifts from other ppl. Those were all bug free. If I bought some and they came with bugs, I would be quite upset - return them for refund. JMO.

Thank you both.

Chris, I tried to remove as much soil/dust/white stuff with a very soft paint brush. I’ll try a kabob stick tonight.

Rina,I think s lot of it is perlite dust from the shipping box, but I’m also pretty sure some might be dead mealies. They aren’t moving, but I remember the look from a bad infection I had last summer. I might try to ship them back, I haven’t gotten a response yet from the seller. I might just stick them in the garage too andput them outside in a couple weeks when it’s warmer. No more ordering from unknown places

You can get farina powder that dries up in the center looking like dead stuff but aren't. I try blowing things away before going with brushes or sticks. Compressed air in small cans that one uses to clean keyboards and other equipment can be handy for that. I just use a mechanical one that you press with your finger (don't know how you'd call that in English)

I use very pointed tweezers to remove some bits of debris among the leaves. For mealybugs, I used a curved dentist pick.

Thanks Alain and ewwmayo. Gotta go get a compressed air blaster and some long tweezers.

Just for future reference for anyone with similar farina qurstions, I dunked all the plants last night in a large pot of 70/30% rubbing alcohol and water and let them sit in there undisturbed for a few minutes. I let them dry overnight, it looked like they were all green with the farina lost, but this morning they we’re dry with farina back everywhere. So alcohol dunking seemed to be safe for farina :)

They got repotted this morning with bonide granules in the top layer of soil to keep any future mealies out. I’ll water them in a week or so.

Thabks again everyone the advice.

I kept wondering why you called me 'chris', and now I finally figured out, Brendan.

Cheers,

Jeff

Jeff, my fault hah. Kept reading your name as Chris at the end. Thanks again