? The lovebug, Plecia nearctica, is a member of the family of march flies. It is also known as the honeymoon fly, kissingbug or double-headedbug. ? Lovebug adults are attracted to light-colored surfaces, especially if they are freshly painted, but the …
Pests in the NewsMay 04, 2011
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Kamal Gandhi, an assistant professor of forest entomology in the UGA Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources, said home- and landowners began bringing her caterpillars last year for help with identifying the insects. The grayish-brown caterpillars …
Pests in the NewsMay 04, 2011
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Naturally attracting beneficial insects to your garden is one way to fight pests. These insects will prey on plant-damaging pests or their larvae and promote a healthier environment for your crops. Different predator species have different prey …
Pests in the NewsMay 04, 2011
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Bedbugs On The Rise In The Borderland
KFOX El Paso EL PASO, Texas — Bedbugs problems are on the rise in the Borderland, according to local pest control experts. Omar Martinez, branch manager of Truly Nolen Pest Control Termites in El Paso, said he's seen a 30 to 40 percent increase in calls asking the … |
Pests in the NewsMay 04, 2011
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Invasive pests severely impact California agriculture
Western Farm Press Many exotic and invasive pests are of major concern in California. The glassy?winged sharpshooter (an insect) and purple loosestrife (a weed) are two invasive species that are established in some areas but still threaten to invade other areas. … |
Pests in the NewsMay 04, 2011
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Keep cockroaches out
Myrtle Beach Sun News -Seal cracks in the exterior of your home to keep pests out. -If you suspect an infestation, contact a licensed pest professional to identify the species and recommend the proper treatment. The Sun News allows readers to comment on stories as a … Keep cockroaches outBelleville News Democrat Keep cockroaches outSunHerald.com |
Pests in the NewsMay 04, 2011
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 Daily Mail |
That's gigANTic: Fossil unearthed of 50 million-year-old insect the size of a …
Daily Mail 'And plenty of insects are similar between British Columbia and Denmark – but they could have lived in a cooler climate and crossed at any time. 'This is the first example we have of something that would have needed warmth in order to make the crossing … |
Pests in the NewsMay 04, 2011
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QUESTION:
How do you control stink bugs? Are there any traps or pheromones out there?
ANSWER:
The Brown Marmorated Stinkbug (BMS) certainly has taken the country by storm in the past couple of years. I recall that just a few years ago this invasive species was still kind of a nuisance, but tolerable except for the occasional home that got a lot of them in it. Suddenly, it seemed, in 2010 the news exploded with reports on the BMS, not only in its massive invasions of structures but also its clear threat to agriculture. It is a fairly large stinkbug, and cannot be overlooked. It also now is firmly entrenched on the West coast, so we’ll see what impact it has on the enormous agricultural industry out here, along with another stinkbug species that recently entered California and Arizona, the Bagrada Bug. Read about these on BugInfo.com.
Since I wasn’t aware myself of any current traps for the BMS I went and Googled a bit, and found a few interesting things. There is one indoor trap being sold privately by someone who invented one himself, after toying with various concoctions that he found attracted the bugs to a lighted trap with a glue board in it. The attractive scent is just certain vegetables, and he has had both good and bad reports back from people who have purchased it from him.
In our market the manufacturer of the Sterling (Rescue) Yellowjacket Traps has announced they will soon market a pheromone trap for the BMS, and that this does use a sex pheromone as the attractant. The manufacturer claims it attracts both nymphs and adults, but since nymphs cannot fly the trap would need to be placed against foliage so the early stages could crawl onto and into it. It also has a very limited radius of attraction, so you can’t place a couple on the back fence and expect the neighborhood to be rid of the bugs. There appear to be a lot of home remedies offered on the internet, but hopefully the one from Sterling will be useful in landscapes to at least cut the populations down, or to place around the home in the Fall to capture the bugs before they enter for the winter.
Pest QuestionsMay 04, 2011
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QUESTION:
Is it true? Is the reason Drywood termites expel fecal pellets from their galleries because the pellets release methane which can build up where they live, thereby killing them?
ANSWER:
Oh boy. A fun one, and I am going to have to use restraint to keep from discussing other deadly sources of, shall we say, methane gas?
I appreciate this question, and it allowed me to learn far more than I ever wanted to know about the methane gas produced by drywood termites, but……….heck, trivia is fun. Drywood termites, according to some references I could find, are fairly prolific producers of methane gas, at least in the Termite World they are prolific. And, in the obsession of many people to identify all the sources of this “greenhouse gas” that will be the end of mankind termites have been fingered as one major source of methane. Of course, so has cow flatulence, so we should still keep a skeptical mind on some of the reports. But, in termites the methane appears to be produced by the little colonies of microorganisms that are in the hindgut of termites – protozoa, bacteria, etc. – that are responsible for much of the actual digestion of cellulose and the release of byproducts that the termite then is able to use for its nutrition.
Methane is an extremely common gas in nature, and it is produced by bacteria and other microorganisms wherever anaerobic decomposition takes place. It also is the major component of the natural gas we use in heating and other gas-powered appliances. Drywood termites have a strong motivation to conserve moisture, since they live in such dry environments such as wood with little moisture content. To this end they squeeze out every possible molecule of water before shoving that fecal pellet out their hind end, making the pellet a very dry, hard piece of waste material. I guess that there must be some amount of methane gas still coming off this pellet, since some tiny number of the microorganisms must be excreted along with the pellet, but it would seem to me that this would have to be so infinitesimally small as to be of no consequence in the termite environment. Far more of the methane would have to be generated within the termite by the workings of those microorganisms, and the methane would just leave the termite as gaseous emissions.
So, without finding anyone or any reference to support my belief, I suspect it is just good housekeeping that causes the drywood termites to get rid of all those fecal pellets. These termites work slowly in wood, and probably cherish the small amount of space they have to work in, and having a lot of poop lying around takes up needed space for no reason. Dampwood termites also produce a similar fecal pellet, although it is larger and softer and is just taken to storage areas within the colony and left there. This does not seem to be harmful to the survival of these termites, and methane gas, if any, must be associated with their pellets as well.
Methane detectors are being offered to the termite inspection industry as one possible tool for detecting hidden termites, but if they work at all it would have to be by detecting the much larger amount of methane coming off the living termites rather than their fecal pellets. I say again that I did not find any specific information anywhere on the level of methane produced by the pellets, and this might be an interesting study for some high school student to do – confine drywood termites with their feces and see what effect it has on them.
Pest QuestionsMay 03, 2011
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BBB Advice on Keeping Pesky Bed Bugs at Bay and out of Your Home
Better Business Bureau In just this year alone, BBB has received over 375 complaints against pest control service companies. In a recent October release, BBB recommended tips for choosing a trustworthy pest control company to banish bedbugs. This time, BBB, along with the … |
Pests in the NewsMay 02, 2011
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